Games London & London’s Booming Games Industry

Late last month, London mayor Boris Johnson announced Games London. The programme is a collaboration between entertainment trade body UKIE and Film London, taking place over the next three years in an effort to realise the capital’s potential as a hub for video game development. The programme will be funded by a £1.2 million grant, as well as the announcement of a brand new London Games Festival which will take place between April 1^st and April 10^th this year.

London has long been a key player in European interactive arts development, but still falls short compared to the output from bigger studios in the US and established veterans in Japan. Key players in the console gaming market are based from either Japan and or the USA, but an ongoing investment in the UK gaming sector could help London catch up in terms of quality output.

The scheme itself has been a long time coming, but organisers have been holding back for the arrival of the Video Games Tax Relief, introduced in 2014. Having realised the potential of the global video games market, valued roughly at £18 billion, the government has been eager to introduce measures which would remove limitations on UK based developers, as well as alleviate costs of operating in the capital.

The programme is estimated, over time, to generate roughly £35 million in additional revenue for London’s entertainment economy, adding a further £10 million over 3 years. One of the biggest benefits of Games London will be the job creation aspects: working in the gaming industry is already highly appealing for many young, digitally minded workers in London, but pathways and opportunities in the industry are often hard to come by. This has created a talent vacuum in the UK, in which the most skilled developers and programmers are heading overseas to join studios in American or other parts of Europe. With newly established skills and training initiatives being created, more quality jobs should appear domestically and encourage skilled workers to stay in the UK.

Similar initiatives across the country have previously helped raise accessibility to various industries, helping young workers find a path towards jobs in emerging digital markets. A similar initiative outside the capital, known as the Brighton Digital Festival, helped create new jobs in the South Coast city, eventually establishing Brighton as the UK’s leader in the digital economy. Brighton web development, as well as many other digital services in the city, have since grown significantly, highlighting the potential of these multimillion pound markets. With the right initiatives, they can contribute significantly to the continued success and innovation of the UK. The success of the Brighton Digital Festival could be seen a precedent for the formula of nurturing and investing in emerging industries, including the added benefits of the jobs they create.

Despite Japan and America dominating the market, many of the world’s biggest gaming companies have offices in the UK, which remains one of the biggest gaming markets in the world, as well as the biggest in Europe. This includes PlayStation, Nintendo, EA, and SEGA. Britain’s contribution to the gaming industry and the culture of gaming is also huge; the Grand Theft Auto series, created by Rockstar Games (based in Edinburgh) revolutionised the sandbox genre and has become one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world. Gaming icon Peter Molyneux OBE was also born in Surrey.

This shows that the UK, and London in particular as a global city, is in a good position to make a large, positive impact on the multibillion gaming industry, as well as permeate gaming culture and create franchises with worldwide appeal.