This article first appeared in the Yorkshire Post
September after the summer break always feels like a fresh start to me, and it’s been a summer of fresh opportunities for the games industry and creative industries more generally. It has been a good one for Game Republic as we won the Develop Star Award for “companies that work with developers to share their understanding of the sector and have provided exceptional support to enable them to thrive and prosper”.
I could not have been prouder of our Northern network at the event in front of hundreds of industry representatives in Brighton.
Leading the biggest change has been the new Government. At the end of July, I was invited, along with other guests from the creative sector in the North, to Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to meet the new Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, who is based in the North. She has served as a Wigan MP since 2010. It was great to see her clear passion for all of the creative sectors.
It was particularly good to hear Nandy speak about how proud she was of the creativity in film, TV and games in the UK, but especially the North of England, quoting none other than Take That, “We've come so far. And we hope for more.”
Lots more happened over the summer with many of our regional companies attending and showcasing their games at Gamescom in Cologne. This event was the biggest yet for consumers and businesses, and whilst the economy is challenging, the mood was upbeat—with deals being done.
Like our new Culture Secretary, I hope for more too, which is why I am supporting Ukie in calling on the Government to increase the UK Games Fund to £30m, bringing us more in line with nations such as Germany, which has committed €70m to support its own video games sector.
I have also joined the board of directors for the regional screen agency Screen Yorkshire. This agency is doing such good work, making Yorkshire a world-renowned hub for filmmakers and TV producers. I hope I can contribute to the direction of the screen industries more and look for opportunities for cross-fertilisation between the creative industries in our region.
There is an increasing number of TV shows and films inspired by games coming forward—The Last of Us, Fallout, Super Mario Bros—but also studios are bringing TV and film to life through games with Taskmaster VR, Queens Gambit, and more coming to the fore. New starts are always best done in collaboration, and we are seeing so much co-development now across our industries. So much so, it inspired our first event for this autumn.
The ‘New Creative Technologies’ event last month in Sheffield was hosted by Game Republic, Barclays Games and Creative, and the University of York's XR Stories.
The event featured various guests including Caroline Cooper-Charles (Screen Yorkshire) in conversation with Barry Ryan (ex-Warp Films now at Ink Factory), Joe Robins from tech company Unity, and Ashley Day from Wakefield-based game developer and publisher Team17—and was a super mix of film, TV, and games attendees discussing the possible impact of AI, using virtual production in film, and how Virtual Reality can be a tool to explain social and political issues.
On that one in particular we have seen some groundbreaking work by Yorkshire-based One-to-One Development Trust — last year tackling mental health and climate crisis and this year doing a brilliant project about homelessness and also about the 40th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike.
We also saw some very innovative Northern tech companies such as Reflex Arc, most recently responsible for the art projection tech in the latest critically-acclaimed David Hockney exhibition. As well as more established companies, we also included an expo featuring some of our excellent participants from the Games Company Start-up skills Bootcamp, funded by York & North Yorkshire Combined Authority, UK Government and Department for Education — and has resulted in new game studios setting up in North Yorkshire. These are all excellent examples of how when we work together we can achieve so much more.
We do need to shout louder about our achievements in the region — we are encouraging that more with the Game Republic Awards, celebrating the individuals and studios that are bringing so much success to our region. The most contested category will, no doubt, be the best game released by studios in the North from September 2023 until November 2024. There are a lot of incredible games being made here in all genres and we will be seeing many of them at a special Games Weekend in Wakefield in November.
I hope that this year and next, we see more uniting of our industries and our country and must admit to feeling a lot more optimistic for what feels like a new and very positive start.