WIREDGOV

Business Minister Edwina Hart announced last week (Thursday April 5) that the Digital Development Fund will now run until the end of March 2013 and an additional £1.5m has been allocated, bringing the total funding to £2million.

Mrs Harts said:

“The Fund is supporting companies around Wales develop a number of interesting, innovative and commercially viable projects with the potential to help fuel the growth of this creative industries sector.

“Initially launched as a pilot project I am now pleased to announce it is to be extended for another year and have allocated additional funding. Interest from Welsh businesses remains high with more than one hundred expressions of interest received to date.”

The fund provides non-repayable seed funding to support the development of new creative products and services that can be exploited across multiple digital platforms and in international markets.

The announcement was made during a visit to Swansea based Chaos Trend, an award winning company that is set to benefit from the fund to help it become one of the first multi-platform games developers in Wales.

Chaos Trend currently develop games solely for Apple platforms and the Welsh Government grant  will enable it to develop for other major mobile gaming platforms like Android, Symbian and Windows

The multi-platform expansion will strengthen Chaos Trend’s position in the market and create new IP that will be held entirely within Wales.

Managing Director Darren Adams said:

“We would not have been able to complete this project or take on the skilled staff we required without the support of the Digital Development Fund.

"We want to focus on game development over software development which is why this fund allows us to have a chance of seriously competing in one of the most competitive industries in the world."