The Media Development Authority of Singapore is hoping to fund ten games studios in the country with S$35,000 (£11,500) each to develop casual games prototypes.

Earlier this year, the MDA gave nine selected games developers S$25,000 each to create games for mobile phones and has managed to convince other studios to get involved in mentoring new teams for the casual games push.

MDA hopes it might stumble upon brand new big games that will have mass appeal and help raise the profile of the Singapore games development scene.

Gerald Tock, senior management executive of the Animation and Games team at the Media Development Authority, said: "What we're really looking at are the teens and women. They've grown the market for puzzle games, like Tetris for example, or the Sims. The take of these games has been really large... we can have extension of casual games into the community environment."

Seto Lok Yin, Assistant CEO, MDA, added: "We're not recognised as a nation that is developing games for the world market, so these are just baby steps for us to build up the capability, build up the companies that are involved in games development and bring in the international publishers."

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