The Ukie team’s mission is to make the UK the best place to make, play and sell games across the world. But how exactly have we tried to achieve that over the past twelve months on behalf of the sector? Join us for a brief look back at everything we got up to this year - or read the January-June edition here.
July
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As scorching heatwaves tore across Europe, Team Ukie headed down to Develop:Brighton, hosting two roundtable discussions as well as the #RaiseTheGame Festival of Food evening. Our very own Dom Shaw was also nominated for the Diversity Star Award at the Develop Star Awards for the second year running.
July saw the Government publish their response to the Call for Evidence on loot boxes ahead of Parliamentary recess in August. Ukie had submitted a response to the Call for Evidence, providing information on industry self-regulatory measures in regards to loot boxes, demonstrated the effectiveness of information campaigns such as our Get Smart About PLAY initiative and committed to working in a constructive manner with relevant Government bodies, regulators and organisations.
July also saw the inaugural Festival of Play at HOST Salford. The festival welcomed school pupils and their teachers a fun-filled conference packed with workshops, talks, games and activities aimed at developing STEAM skills and offering careers advice.
August
In what is always a busy month for international trade, August saw the commencement of our inaugural “Ukie Worldwide” campaign. Including sponsored content in the press, a series of virtual trade missions and the all important Gamescom, Ukie Worldwide was launched alongside a landmark piece of research showing that the UK Games Industry has received at least £7.7bn of inward investment over the last three years, with the top three inward acquisitions accounting for 41% of this figure.
The campaign began with a fantastic series of virtual trade missions. Kicking off with “Selling games into China” audiences heard from Mingxuan Chen, Market Analyst at Newzoo; Glenn Wang, Asia Publishing Director at Curve Games; Dave Clark, Global Client Director at Arcus Key and finally a panel with all speakers as well as Ukie board member Li Ma, UK & Ireland Director at Tencent.
The next session, “Collaborating with the African games market” was co-hosted by Rex Bowden of Africa Games Week and featured Nick Hall, CFO of RenderHeads; Sidick Bakayoko of Côte d'Ivoire-based esport events and games promotion company Paradise Game; and Hugo Obi of the Nigerian studio Maliyo Games.
The final session, “Why the UK is the best place for your games company” was led by Nigel Jones from the Department for International Trade and featured Mark Phillips, Partner at Harbottle and Lewis, as well as a panel discussion chaired by Sam Collins featuring Ranjani Natarajan, COO of Robot Teddy; Jon Rissik, CEO of Dovetail Games and Mark South, COO of Double Eleven.
Ukie then returned with its biggest ever stand at this year’s gamescom event in Cologne in August 2022. Supported by the Department for International Trade, funded by businesses and staffed by both the Ukie team and six Google Scholars, the stand hosted 79 exhibitors from the UK games industry across 1000 square metres to help them generate business opportunities, press coverage and investment – generating millions of pounds in business wins in the process.
The stand’s theme this year was sustainability, and our efforts to make the stand green earned us the gamescom goes green award for the most environmentally conscious stand at the event, with Ukie using its appearance during the live streamed Opening Night Live event (viewed by over half a million people worldwide) to encourage players and businesses to play their part in protecting our planet.
August concluded with voting open for the new Ukie board nominees:
· Keith Anderson, VP Marketing, Dovetail Games
· Mark Backler, CEO, Sketchbook Games - @markbackler
· Des Gayle, Founder and Game Director, Altered Gene Limited - @kid_desimo
· Li Ma, Director, Tencent
· Chris Kempt, Partner, Kempt & Co - @chriskempt
· Harinder Sangha, Operations Director, Sumo Digital Ltd - @harinder_sangha
· Simon Barratt, CEO, Cooperative Innovations - @barog
· Maria Sayans, Chief Executive Officer, ustwo games - @stealthcrystal
· Alastair Moore, Games Corporate Development, Byte Dance
· Tim Woodley, Head of Publishing, Hello Games - @HelloTimW
· Brian Trunk, VP & General Manager - EMEA, LATAM & APAC, Wizards of the Coast
· Kaya Tilev, CEO, Lava Labs - @kayatilev
September
September of course was the month in which Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II sadly passed away. Ukie joined the country and the rest of the world in mourning her loss.
Westminster Games Week brought the games industry to Whitehall with three days focusing on three key topics – “Levelling up the games industry,” “Fostering fun and responsible play,” and “Skills of the future”. Activities include catered roundtable discussions, a drinks reception as well as an exciting lunchtime showcase in Portcullis House to demonstrate games, charities and responsible play initiatives from across the sector directly to parliamentarians, researchers, and civil servants.
Later in the month the Ukie AGM, held alongside EGX and GI Biz Live, announced the appointment of seven Board members set to join/re-join the Board after successfully winning enough support from Ukie’s full membership:
· Mark Backler, Sketchbook Games
· Simon Barratt, Cooperative Innovations
· Des Gayle, Altered Gene
· Li Ma, Tencent
· Harinder Sangha, Sumo Digital
· Maria Sayans, Ustwo
· Tim Woodley, Hello Games
Attendees at the AGM were also treated to the inaugural Video Game Ambassadors Awards and a sneak peek into the new and improved UK Games Map, launching this New Year…
Ukie and Barclays teamed up once again, this time to announce the Mobile Games Growth Programme. The first of its kind, this accelerator programme kicked off in November and provided a cohort of 10-15 founders, CEOs and leaders of promising UK mobile games developers with the vital skills required to scale their businesses.
The very end of September saw the relaunch of the Digital Schoolhouse Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Team Battle and Junior Tournament for 2023, in partnership with Nintendo. Sign-ups for all UK schools opened for the two tournaments that bring video games careers to life, teach students valuable transferrable skills and demonstrate real world applications of computer science. Soon after the launch, the initiative’s fantastic Programme and Communications Manager Amii Oldham joined the team full time.
October
As the nights drew in, Ukie welcomed over 300 students to the first in-person Ukie Student Conference since 2019, hosted at Staffordshire University. With a fantastic programme of talks and an exhibitor area allowing students to make meaningful connections with industry, the day was an overwhelming success. Participants included representatives from Skills City, Rare, Sumo Digital, Samsung, DR Studios, Nerial, Electronic Arts, Codemasters, d3t, Flix Interactive, Playground Games, Lucid Games and Staffordshire University.
This month also market the return of the Ukie HR Member group from hiatus - a forum for sharing ideas and best practice between HR teams; concerns, issues and trending topics impacting HR and operations professionals, legal professionals and recruitment professionals.
Finally, Ask About Games and Taming Gaming editor Andy Robertson appeared at MCM Comic-Con in London with a Family Gaming area designed to encourage families to understand and play games with their children as introduce them to fantastic family games that meet their needs, which they may not have heard of.
November
November began with the launch of Ukie, Diva and GamesIndustry.biz’s Playable Futures podcast. Derived from the successful article series earlier in the year and hosted by games journalist Will Freeman, the podcast features global games leaders sharing their visions of where the industry and medium will go next.
#RaiseTheGame delivered the initiative’s first ever campaign, Access November – two weeks of virtual networking sessions, talks and workshops, online resources and content as well as some in-person satellite events all designed to help make video games and the wider industry more accessible to disabled and neurodivergent people. The campaign delivered a series of games-related workshops, talks and fireside chats at TechShare Pro, Europe's largest accessibility and inclusive design conference, with contributors such as the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), mayamada and Many Cats.
Ukie and Barclays Mobile Games Growth Programme also kicked off in November, with the full cohort listed on the Ukie website. The two organisations then teamed up again for the Access to Finance series, three events (two online and one in person) bringing together financial experts and games businesses to think about their investments, access to funding and resilience for the upcoming year.
November, meanwhile, was a big month for our team! Current and former Ukie employees Dom Shaw and Grace Shin were both listed on the MCV/Develop 30 Under 30 list.
We also welcomed a series of new starters: joining the Digital Schoolhouse team this month were Lewis Kay, the initiative’s new Programme Support Officer and Yiren Ye, Events Intern. November also saw the appointment of two new policy team members – our Policy and Public Affairs Officer Amen Tesfay and Manager Daniele Schmitt-Fischer.
December
As we wound down for the year, it was fantastic to see so many members and friends at our first in-person Festive Drinks since 2019. Sponsored by Green Man Gaming, it was a fun-filled evening of festive tunes, treats and drinks.
We were then met with the fantastic news that our Gamescom 2022 stand has been shortlisted for Best Event at the Trade Association Forum Awards, alongside the British Security Industry Association, the National hair & Beauty Federation, the Lift and Escalator Industry Association and the Self Storage Association UK.
Meanwhile, some of our Digital Schoolhouse and Ukie Education team headed over to Lagos to discuss new Schoolhouse opportunities in Nigeria, attending Kucheza Games’ Game Makers Assembly. Head of Education and Director of Digital Schoolhouse, Shahneila Saeed, presented a careers talk at this fantastic conference for young creators, whilst Curriculum Content Developer Estelle Ashman led a brilliant 'paper prototyping' session allowing students to generate a game idea in an hour and pitch it to an Xbox scout.