Major Russian gaming companies, including VK, are currently negotiating with the Ministry of Digital Development about the possibility of allocating state funding for the development of a domestic game engine.
This is reported by Kommersant with reference to a source close to the government. The Ministry of Finance officially confirmed the fact of negotiations. However, VK did not comment on the situation to our Moscow colleagues.
As far as can be understood from the publication, the discussions are at a very early stage. So far, the ministry is only planning to gather developers in order to get from them “an approximate technical task to understand the scope of work and deadlines.”
The possibility of financing the engine through the grant program of the Russian Foundation for the Development of Information Technologies (RFRIT) is being considered. At the moment, nothing is known about the possible volumes of such state support, although Kommersant experts say that RFRIT grants for particularly significant projects can reach 6 billion rubles.