Microsoft’s Greenshoots game development funding & guidance program is expanding this year and starting to offer grants to developers in Northern Ireland.
This will help bring a bit more money into the Northern Irish game development scene — £100,000 (~$153,000 USD) apiece, to be exact, divided five ways into grants for companies developing games for Xbox One, PC or mobile devices.
That’s a nice chunk of change, though it’s still a bit smaller than the £500,000 (~$767,000) in Greenshoots funding Microsoft is making available to English developers this year in partnership with Creative England.
Of course, that’s the inaugural Greenshoots program, which got its start three years ago as a joint initiative between Microsoft and Creative England to offer funding and mentorship to English game developers based outside the Greater London area.
This year sees Microsoft partnering with Northern Ireland Screen and also the Welsh government to launch pilot versions of the program in their respective regions of the United Kingdom.
While applications for the Welsh grants closed last month, developers in Northern Ireland can still apply for Greenshoots funding through Friday, November 13th by visiting the Northern Ireland Screen website.