#uk-games-fund — Public Fediverse posts

What The New UK Government’s £30M Games Funding Means For Scotland

This week’s announcement of a £30 million Games Growth Package by the UK Government marks a significant moment of recognition for the interactive sector. With the doubling of the UK Games Fund (UKGF) to £28.5 million and the introduction of grants up to £250,000, Westminster has finally acknowledged the importance (and potential) of the £8.8 billion consumer market. However, while this capital injection is a vital down payment for de-risking new intellectual property, it is not a complete strategy for the future of the Scottish supercluster.

For Scotland, this news has a deep resonance. The UK Games Fund was born in Dundee, emerging from the Dare to be Digital programme at Abertay University. It is a Scottish success story that has been exported to the rest of the UK. Yet, the physical location of the fund in Dundee does not offer an inherent advantage to Scottish studios. Without a formalised national strategy to interface with this capital, Scotland risks acting as a landlord for a UK asset rather than a primary beneficiary of its expansion.

The limitation of the DCMS package lies in its ‘industry’ focus. As Nick Poole, CEO of UKIE, noted: “Targeted support across the development pipeline will help studios start, scale and stay globally competitive.” This vision remains firmly trapped within the consumer games market, which remains hugely volatile and increasingly competitive. It focuses on the entertainment side of games, while ignoring the wider ecosystem of interactive technology. It won’t address the sectoral isolation that keeps games expertise separated from the rest of the Scottish economy.

Please don’t misunderstand. The money is hugely valuable – and very welcome. However, there are a number of challenges facing the games sector, which the funding alone cannot solve. The industry is currently facing an oversupply of graduates, a lack of entry-level positions, and ongoing global market volatility. Throwing capital at studios without providing the commercial scaffolding required to build sustainable businesses is a high-risk approach. This is why the National Games Action Plan is essential. While the UK Government funding provides the fuel, the Action Plan provides the road, and the guidebook for the journey.

Projects like the Hello World! Startup Summit have already proven that we can transform a vulnerable talent pool into a resilient wave of new founders. By providing dedicated, games-specific business support alongside funding, we ensure that studios do not just survive a grant period but scale into the kind of high-growth companies Scotland needs.

With the Scottish Parliament now in recess and the election period beginning, the next administration faces a clear challenge. The UK Government has set the pace with this Growth Package. Scotland must now build upon it. While this new funding could be used to match-fund successful Scottish UKGF applications, the most critical single action remains strategic alignment – recognition of games as a key sector for Scotland’s future, building understanding of the whole games ecosystem across government and appointing a Chief Games Officer (CGO).

A CGO would provide the accountability and leadership required to elevate games across every portfolio of the Scottish Government. This role would enable the country to engage more successfully with UK-level funding while ensuring that our £151,382 GVA-per-head productivity is leveraged across areas including healthcare, energy, fintech, data, tech and education.

The goal is to establish a £1 billion supercluster by 2030. The DCMS announcement is a very welcome boost, but it does not remove the fundamental structural issues facing the sector. To move beyond the silo and achieve true national impact, the incoming Scottish Government must implement the Games Action Plan. The capital is now on the table – it is time for the strategic delivery to begin and for games to become an integral part of Scotland’s digital future.

£30 Million New Funding For UK Games Fund & London Games Fest

The UK Government has allocated £30 million of new funding for the country’s games industry with a £28.5 million pot of funding for the UK Games Fund and £1.5 million of funding for the London Games Festival.

The new UK games funding represents a doubling in funding for the sector as the government puts the Creative Industries Sector Plan into action, delivered through two respected and hugely successful programmes.

Games For Growth

Through the Games Growth Package, the government will support newly-formed and expanding developers to turn concepts and prototypes for games into reality, enabling them to sell titles across the UK and around the world.

The package launched as games companies from around the world gather at the London Games Festival. The government also announced that £1.5 million of new funding has been awarded to the festival over the next three years, to help ensure the UK remains at the centre of the sector globally.

The funding will help strengthen investor partnerships, doubling the value to £30 million per year of private investment deals at the festival. 

Creative Industries Minister Ian Murray said:

Video games are not only great fun, they are big business – and for too long their value to the British economy has been overlooked.

That is why the government has thrown its full support behind the sector with £30 million of new funding. This will turbocharge the careers of some of our most talented game developers, creating more jobs and economic growth right across the country as their ideas come to fruition.

The UK’s games market is bigger than ever before, with £8.8 billion being spent by gamers per year.

The Games Growth Package was a key commitment in the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy’s Creative Industries Sector Plan, a £380 million growth blueprint to ensure the UK’s creative sectors remain at the forefront of the global marketplace.

Grants from the UK Games Fund will be split into three categories:

• An Entry Track, with grants of up to £20,000 available to newly formed companies with limited track records but strong potential for growth.
• An Emergent Track, with grants of up to £100,000 for prototyping new games.
• An Expansion Track, with grants of up to £250,000 – the largest ever provided by the Fund – available to take games forward to completion and enable studios to scale up.

This funding is in addition to significantly increased support for the sector from the British Business Bank, the UKRI research body and the UK’s games tax relief. Additionally, £20 million of funding has been provided by the government to Tay Cities Region to back local talent in advancing creative technologies, including games and immersive technologies, to drive new products and grow the economy.

Alongside the funding, the government has also commissioned the Chartered Trading Standard Institute to develop new guidance to help gamers better understand their consumer rights when purchasing their favourite games. The guidance clarifies business obligations and consumer rights under the law when selling and purchasing digital content, including video games. A CTSI-led consultation will launch in the coming months to inform this guidance. 

As part of the government’s wider plans to grow the gaming sector, it will engage with the newly-established UK Esports Advisory Panel, a Ukie-led forum between government and the esports sector.

Paul Durrant, UK Games Talent and Finance CIC Founder and Director, said:

We welcome this strong reinforcement of government support for the UK video games development sector. The three track funding approach will ensure that support is provided across the broadest level of the UK sector.

Nick Poole OBE, Chief Executive of Ukie, said:

We welcome the Government’s Games Growth Package as a strong vote of confidence in the UK games industry.

We have been pleased to work with the DCMS team to help shape this package of support, ensuring it reflects the needs of studios across the country. Targeted support across the development pipeline will help studios start, scale and stay globally competitive.

As we look ahead to a defining year for games made in the UK, we will continue working closely with government to support growth, drive innovation, and create high-quality jobs across the country.

Dr Richard Wilson OBE, TIGA CEO, said:

Access to finance is a persistent challenge for many game developers. TIGA has previously called for more prototype and content funding to enable studios to access the investment they need to make great games. Today’s announcement of an increase in grant funding for newly formed companies, prototype funding and expansion funding is great news for studios, the games industry and the wider UK economy.

Michael French MBE, Head of Games London & Festival Director, London Games Festival, said:

Over the last ten years, LGF and Games London has supported talent across the UK and helped establish London as one of the world’s largest hubs for games makers – but this commitment from national government into the London Games Festival has fast-tracked our deeper ambitions.

The efforts are already paying off: This week sees the largest showing yet for our festival, which will help to further promote London and the UK as a video games centre of excellence to global investors and decision makers. This can only keep growing over the next three years and we are excited to help raise the international profile of the UK’s games market, reach bigger audiences nationally and around the world, and facilitate investment into games businesses up and down the country.

Nick Button-Brown, Chair, UK Video Games Council: 

This is an amazing statement of intent by the government and a sign of their long-term support for gaming in the UK.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash