Under certain conditions, the amount of federal funding can be increased even for ongoing game projects. This is stated in the new FAQs on funding. However, tweaking or fixing mistakes you made yourself is not sufficient reasons for this.
This is generally good news for studios that have applied for and been granted federal funding. As stated in the current FAQs, which explain the legal details of the funding guidelines, it is possible under certain circumstances to increase the amount of funding for an ongoing project. Even though the hurdles for this are rightly high, studios can hope to receive more support from the funding in the event of unforeseeable circumstances.
Specific examples mentioned in the FAQ include necessary platform/engine changes, new regulatory requirements, supplier failure, playtests, or disproportionately promising market prospects.
However, it is also made very clear that an increase is not an option to compensate for poor planning or mistakes in project implementation. Nor is it possible to increase funding for marginal feature enhancements or polishing.
There are further restrictions. An increase is only possible for production funding, not for prototype funding. In addition, it must be proven that the funds could not be generated through the company's own efforts, such as reallocations, loan applications, or other alternative solutions. And, of course, the company's own investment must increase by the same amount so that the financing ratio between the grant and the company's own contribution remains the same.
So, there are high hurdles to overcome in order to increase the grant in an ongoing project. At the same time, however, it is good to know that the federal government would rather add more money than see a games project fail through no fault of its own due to external circumstances.
