The organisers of the Gamedev.World conference have announced a new fund to support developers in emerging territories around the globe.

Launching this summer, the Global Games Fund will offer studios grants of between $5,000 and $50,000 to assist with games in the prototype stage or pre-production.

The initiative is led by Rami Ismail and Myriame Lachapelle, who have currently raised around $1 million for the fund.

The fund is open to any developers “outside of the Western world,” with game makers invited to pitch their titles and communicate their titles in Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, or Brazilian Portuguese.

The organisers have also promised a developer-friendly recoup structure, offering three methods of recouping costs. The recoup terms expire three years after the relevant title has launched, and if costs have not been recouped, any remaining debts and conditions are waived.

Ismail and Lachappelle who are also seeking publishers, investors and other partners to collaborate with to create more funding opportunities going forward, as well as mentorship support for developers that receive grants.

“Like access to knowledge, funding is not fairly distributed around the world, across languages and across cultures,” the team wrote on the fund’s website.

“Living in the West, speaking English, and making games based on Western culture and mythology gives developers structural advantages in attracting publisher funding and investment.”

The team added: “Any developer, anywhere, and in any language, deserves access to funding structures and opportunities to make great games. With the Global Games Fund, Gamedev.World continues to expand its global mission of making the games industry a truly global industry.”

Gamedev.World is a global games conference started in 2019 by indie icon and consultant Rami Ismail. It is an online-only event where all the talks are translated into multiple languages in order to cover every major and emerging games market in the world.