Shaping Your Future: Ukie is Here to Help | Develop:Brighton 2024

Everybody, uh, I'm Nick P. I'm the chief exec of Yuki. You brave, hardy souls that managed to find broom six at 5:00 on a Wednesday. I can't thank you enough uh for joining me. I suspect quite a lot of the Yuki team are here making me feel better. Uh, so thank you so much. Do please feel free to heckle me at any point. Um and also if you're in the wrong room uh absolutely no foul you can uh leap to your feet uh and head off. Uh so thank you so much and thank you to the organizers of develop uh for the opportunity to come talk to you a little bit about who we are, what we do uh and the ways in which uh hopefully Yuki can help uh your business achieve more as a a UK games business. Um so I just wanted to do a quick show of hands which is tricky because I'm going to struggle to see them. Uh but who in the room is a member of UKI already? Outstanding. Lovely to have you with us. And is who's involved in any of our working groups uh

for the industry? Fantastic. Brilliant. So when I inevitably mess this up and get it massively wrong, please just shout out corrections as we go through. There is also uh very gently an audience participation element uh to this uh which is I'll bring this up again towards the end but we are just going into a major planning phase for Yuki setting out the next 3 to 5 years uh of our ambitions uh to do more to supercharge uh this amazing industry in the UK. Uh so we want your ideas. We want to know what your priorities are. We want to know the things that are front of mind. So uh if you can go to menty I've done the terrible thing with menty which is leave it completely open so you can say anything you like uh in menty. So I'll be very careful about where we display the results. Uh but do please share your ideas about where you'd like to see us go. So what I'm going to cover uh just over the next 20 minutes or so and then would really welcome any comments, questions uh thoughts is just these four areas with uh what are we as a trade association uh

for the UK video game and interactive entertainment industry. Uh what's our role? where do we fit into the landscape? Uh going to talk a little bit about uh just on a very practical level how we can support uh your business, the work that you're doing uh here as a a UK games business. Uh and also touch on some of the wider things that we're doing to create the best possible environment for uh businesses here to succeed. And obviously uh you know a great deal of that is around uh policy investment, creating the right kind of supportive structures uh for the industry. So we'd love to get your ideas around that. And then finally, just a little bit about how you can help us uh to help you. We thrive on the back of uh the extent to which we're useful uh in helping you to move forward. So we would love to get both your ideas and your engagement in the work that Yuki does uh over the next few years. So does that sound like a useful way to spend 20 minutes of of your life over the next 20 minutes? Excellent. And nobody's in the wrong room. Nobody's leapt up yet. Uh which is fantastic. So, thank you uh for

staying with it or perhaps you're still asleep uh from the last one. What's a trade association? That scintillating question I know is burning on everybody's lips. Um we're a not for-profit membership organization. Uh and trade associations exist to represent individuals and businesses operating in the same industry with common interests. Uh so we act as that uh loud hail, that mouthpiece, that voice for the collective interests of uh this industry. And fundamentally the reason why we bring that voice together, why we kind of come together as businesses to share our common interest uh is so we can create the conditions for businesses to flourish. We have an extraordinary pedigree in the UK in terms of the video game and interactive entertainment sector. Uh we have a global footprint and profile. Um but it is looking ahead over the next 20 to 30 years really really important that we take action together now to make sure that we're continuing to build on that

uh for the next couple of decades. Uh we speak with a single voice on behalf of the industry to government uh to regulators to the media. Uh so I was at an event on Monday night uh at the British Fashion Council. I know, I know it's unlikely, but I was uh where I met the new Secretary of State uh for business and trade, Jonathan Reynolds, uh MP, who apart from looking slightly stunned and told me he hadn't slept for three days, uh said that he's a massive Football Manager fan, uh his children play games all the time and that the government has money to spend on supporting our industry. And so, I think building those connections is going to be really, really important uh over the next couple of years. But we also do uh another really important job which is in an industry where lots of businesses are competing, there's lots of different interests, we provide a neutral, a confidential, a shared platform for us to explore where we want to go together and the kind of areas that we need to address uh together. So everybody in this room and I freely admit I can't really see everybody in this room looks

far too young uh to remember the foundations of Yuki in elsewhere but just in case uh we are the longest established video game industry body in the world. Uh we were established as in 1989 and then took the decision to become UK interactive entertainment September 2010. And our aim is to represent the entire video game ecosystem. And that is a very dynamic thing. There's lots of change uh in terms of how businesses are operating uh the balance of work for hire, the balance of new IP, big small uh and our ambition is to share common interests and act in the good of that entire ecosystem. So at the moment we've got around 650 video game companies across the UK. If you come away from this delighted and inspired uh to join Yuki, which I really hope you will, uh come and talk to me or to one of my colleagues, I think Leo, are you here? I can see you. Excellent. My brilliant colleague Leo. Um about how we might be able to help uh support you and everyone

from the very small uh to the global. So I raided the archive for this talk uh just to go back a little bit over some of the things uh that Yuki has been involved with uh over the years. Um I just love the early days of kind of project theory around copyright. is fantastic. This disc will give you hours of fun. This disc could give you six months in prison. Um we still actually do a lot of work around IP protection, but it tends obviously to be more uh in the digital domain. Uh we were uh very strongly instrumental in promoting the uptake of Peggy uh the games rating system uh and worked across industry with a range of stakeholders to build uh that infrastructure which I think has made a real difference uh in terms of consumer awareness and and assurance. Um we also lead on uh things like this the games industry uh valuation which provides really really important data and insight into how the industry is moving. Uh and we lead on things like the uh games industry census. So a lot of the conversations today around equity

and representation and diversity and supporting talent in the industry uh have drawn on that data and it's really really important that we continue to provide that uh really high quality data uh around the industry. Uh but we also uh were strongly instrumental in and and very closely involved in building the case for uh the video game tax relief and its uh kind of evolution towards uh the video game expenditure credit. And we're now again in the process of assembling the business case to grow that vital support uh for the industry. And and the reason why we can do that is because we can bring together the voices of the whole industry and say to government uh with credibility uh that we can act with a single voice that we can uh work together. So in terms of who we are, our leadership is of the industry uh by the industry for the industry. So we have a wide range of uh businesses represented on our board. Uh so Activision Blizzard King, Epic, but

also a real spread from the very large to the very small to um indie developers and and lots of others you can see here. And that gives us a real richness of perspective into the the overall health of the video game ecosystem and how we can get those different elements to work together. going to warn my colleagues about the next slide because the intention was not that this was going to appear in a public forum but just to introduce you to our lovely wonderful friendly professional team. Um this is us. This is everybody uh at Yuki uh who in all innocence pose for a photograph against team away day. Uh but they are and I'm sure you've encountered some of them in your work absolutely brilliant, dedicated, knowledgeable people who are fundamentally here to help this industry succeed. Uh so hopefully uh you'll get a chance to meet more of them. But in terms of shaping the work, we're starting to work, as I say, on our our next five-year plan. And it's really important, I think, to try and get ahead of where we think the industry is at. So

coming into this, uh as a relatively new CEO and looking at the way the industry talks about itself, uh particularly in some areas of the trade, uh coverage, um you would think that there was an existential crisis. There's undoubtedly uh a huge period of challenge, but I think we're really trying to dig into the data around the market dynamics that we're seeing uh right now so that we can inform a strategy for how we help the industry get through that period. Uh so there's lots of cuts of this data. This one's taken from Boston Consulting Group um that yes uh you know undoubtedly we saw a period of of growth accelerated through COVID for obvious reasons. we have seen a downward correction, a very painful, very sharp downward correction, but that correction is towards a line that continues uh to grow. So, where we saw that 11% year-on-year growth uh from 2016 through 21, we're still on a 6% uh growth curve uh going through to 2025 as

a projection. And there's every reason to suppose that that growth curve continues. And I attended a presentation given by a a Treasury representative a couple of months ago now who said if they had to bet on one industry still to be growing in 20 years time, it would be the UK's video game and interactive entertainment industry. So it's really important I think that we set where we are in context of where uh we might go. So yes, it's painful. Yes, I think it is a sharp correction. I I think there's a lot of uh confounding factors within that particularly in terms of money markets and shifts in global trade. In the short term, we really really want to help the industry through this transition. So that particularly means the talented and committed people that have lost jobs. Uh we are acutely alive to uh just the the sense of loss around the layoffs that have happened. So we need to look at how we're helping those people, how we're supporting both the businesses and the people concerned uh through this transition. But in the medium term, we need to make

sure that we're doing the right things to build a shock absorber. Um because if we know one thing, it's that this kind of cycle will continue. It's partly innate. Um and so we want to help UK games businesses and global companies with a UK footprint to build resilience to understand uh you know if this is going to keep happening to some degree how do we build a greater degree of resilience into the industry? How do we secure access to finance? How do we minimize uh one of the things that I think is a concern uh to all of us which is you know two years time we're going to see a real slowdown uh in content coming through the industry. So, how do we manage the kind of long-term impacts of uh the issues that we're living through at the moment? And then in the long long term, we want to continue to build on the UK's reputa reputation as a global hub for innovation uh for new IP and for advanced technologies. Uh we are to some extent in a in a race uh with other nations in terms of how competitive an environment we can create in the UK. There is undoubtedly I think

a better conversation to be had with Treasury and with government about how we do that. But I also think there are some fundamental decisions about what kind of games industry do we want to be uh going forward and where are the areas we're going to prioritize like uh generating new IP. And then something we think about a lot as the UK trade association is is what is our unique value proposition. You know in part it is that incredibly rich pedigree and heritage. you know where the UK is coming from, an amazing established ecosystem, worldleading publishers and studios, uh a great track record in telling stories and sharing IP that's then heard around the world. Um great talent pool, competitive financial incentives. There's a lot going for the UK, but we need to really tell that story harder um and make it very real uh for businesses that are looking at uh the rate of tax relief and incentive that they can see in other countries. So that's going to be uh a very big agenda for us over the next couple of years. So

turning to what we do that uh is designed to help you succeed to help your business uh succeed. Pretty much everything I'm going to talk about here uh draws on a new resource that we've just launched which is Yuki's here to help page. Um so if anybody wants to follow up on anything that I'm going to mention in this talk um then please do go there have a look uh and find out how we can help you. I'm going to flash that URL up in about three slides time as well, just to really reinforce the message. Um, but a big part of what our team does is very solid, very practical, very grassroots business and enterprise support. So, if you're asking yourself the question, where can I go for help with uh the chances are that Yuki has something within our offer that's going to help you address the challenge that your business is going through uh at the moment. Um, so we have a video games growth program. I'll touch on that uh a little in a little bit, but um essentially just the latest rounds just closed. U but we hope to continue uh to

grow and develop that uh accelerator and growth program. Uh we have a fantastic set of need to know videos. I was listening earlier to a presentation around uh more inclusive hiring practices in video game businesses. And a lot of the knowledge, a lot of the templates were drawn from uh resources that Yuki has published uh on our site. uh we're really focused on EDI um and people uh and how businesses can support uh people and talent management. So uh a lot of resource uh around those areas. We have a set of standard contracts that you can access which hopefully will help you past uh some of the initial kind of legal challenges of contracting. Um, we've got guidance on accessing finance and we're working on a program at the moment with one of our trustees, uh, Nick Button Brown called Funding Quest, uh, which is going to provide, uh, sort of enhanced support to games businesses looking for finance at different points in in your journey. Uh, we have an active IP protection offer. Um, very

busy uh, and really really important, I think, in terms of keeping tabs on uh, what's going on with infringement. Um, we provide extensive access to discounted business services. Again, I'll I'll mention that one in just a second. Uh, we provide access to video game sales data. So, sort of helping to understand uh what's happening in terms of consumer trends uh and sales. Uh, we've been running an amazing series jointly with the Barclays game and creative team uh of local hubcrawl events. I came to the one here uh in Brighton's absolutely fantastic coming together of um lots of people kind of with different levels of experience in the industry. Uh if you're close to where we are, we provide access to meeting rooms and workspace. Uh and also we're really really going to be investing over the next few years um in trade and investment. So helping people find investors, but also looking at uh selling your games overseas and promoting the brand of of UK games overseas. So, I just wanted to pick on

three of those to go into a little more depth. The video games growth program. As I say, the current round just closed, but we hope to uh reopen. Uh a gold standard accelerator path which provides support around areas like creating a company vision and mission, choosing um the right business model for the company. Uh putting in place the the kind of much needed back office, the kind of financial management, uh HR, people development, uh developing PR and marketing. uh and then there's a scale up path that builds on the back of that that helps companies uh scale up and move through and so I think we can really provide practical infrastructure and support uh for people who are looking to grow their business. The local hub crawl events have been absolutely fantastic. Um the most recent one is around local action, global ambition, how we connect uh the industry into doing more uh in terms of international trade and and collaboration overseas. Brilliantly friendly people, amazing industry leaders and pizza. What's not to love?

Uh so we're in discussion with Barclays at the moment about bringing the hub crawl back for next year. I think Leo, is that right? Marvelous. Yes. Um and I don't think we know what the theme is for next year yet, but uh okay. So we'll advertise it as soon as we do. Uh but I suspect there will still be pizza and it's an amazing way uh for people particularly starting out building uh their business to meet really experienced uh industry leads uh to hear kind of how they went about it. Um we have a partners directory uh which currently offers really chunky discounts from more than 80 UK and international businesses. So that's heavily discounted and in many cases the first initial engagement is free uh advice around accountancy and tax, legal services, uh access to things like cloud hosting, software services, uh support with recruitment, marketing, PR, training, and and more recently we've just added a partner into that mix who has a range of offers around monetization uh and support for the business. So, we're really trying to provide uh a turnkey

support to to reduce the barriers if if you like to to kind of scaling up your business to the greatest extent that we can. Uh so, I've just cherrypicked a few here, but all of those uh are covered in Yuki's here to help page and we also have a fantastically helpful team. So, if you want to find out more about how to access uh and engage with all of those resources, do please just get in touch with us today or or very much after today. So, just turning to a little bit about how we support the video games industry. And I'm always really conscious that sometimes this stuff can feel a little bit distant from the very practical day-to-day of getting a game made, but in many ways the big picture stuff we do feeds directly into how supportive an environment this is for your business. Um, so I'm just going to run through a number of the areas that we're active in uh at the moment. So, the first one uh is our work around policy and advocacy. We've got a really busy uh policy team. We operate as the leading voice for the industry in Westminster. Uh so we're currently um building up Westminster

Games Week which is going to take place in the middle of October. We're also going to be at Labour Party conference flying the flag uh for the industry and we work in partnership across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland uh to promote the positive impact of video games. So there's a lot about educating 300 new MPs, engaging people in the power of the industry, uh looking at the the huge economic upside on this industry, but also the other areas in which we can uh support their ambitions. Um while also looking at regulatory support and investment. So I think it is undoubtedly the case particularly in the UK that we need government money to start the engine to kind of pump prime the industry and to derisk really innovative exciting projects. And so we want to get the new government uh excited about the opportunity uh to invest in the industry. So our ambition is to make this the most pro games uh government in history. Uh and so we're going to set about that uh with

determination. We also run uh quite a a number of public-f facing campaigns. Uh the most recent I think highest profile of those is uh the brilliant ask about games led by my colleague Bevina. Yay for Bavina. Um which raised public awareness of and support for the value of video games and interactive entertainment. I I think there's a huge opportunity over the next couple of years for us really to tell a new story uh about games, the difference they make. We've already seen some interesting coverage in in the news which is starting to turn away from uh some of the very lazy repotage around games into something that feels a lot more nuanced, better informed. Uh and as a big part of that, we're going to be putting together a much richer data set around the impact of video games and interactive entertainment uh so that we can counter maybe some of the lazier tropes about what we're about as an industry. Uh we have a very fundamental belief in equality, diversity and inclusion. It goes very much to the

heart of who we are uh and why we do what we do as a trade association. We believe fundamentally that our industry is stronger and that games are better when they're more inclusive, more diverse, more representative of the widest range of cultures and identities. So we want to get more people excited about and involved in the process of making fantastic games. The the main campaign we run around this is raise the game. Uh there's a brilliant diversity pledge. So if your business hasn't made that pledge yet, please do or if you have and you've forgotten that you did, please come back and we very happily uh refresh it for you. Uh but as part of that, there's a set of resources called empower up which is very practical guidance on how you can uh open up, diversify, improve the representation uh of your um teams. uh and more recently we uh supported the launch with the Gina Davis Institute uh of a playbook which looks at how we can tell much more inclusive and authentically representative stories uh in our games.

So uh really exciting set of resources. We do a lot of work around education. We're currently campaigning uh for a digital creativity GCSE um through the amazing digital schoolhouse which hopefully a number of you uh will have heard about if you're not already kind of directly involved in it. Um we're campaigning for the recognition of the power of play and digital creativity in the school curriculum. And I think, you know, in terms of uh New Horizons, AI, you know, where where the UK's digital economy is heading, it could not be more important that we're developing a next generation of kids um that are critical thinkers, digitally creative, able to build brilliant new things. So, that isn't just about engineering the future cyber supply chain into the uh games industry. It's also about um digital creativity across the whole UK workforce. uh and an area we're really really excited about championing. As I say, we want to build up our research agenda. I think you know some of the

challenges we've seen in the past with representing the industry actively to the outside world um is because the threshold on evidence has been pretty low. Uh and so we're going to be working really really hard um to build on things like the market valuation, the games industry census that we already do. I think the future development of our industry needs to be evidence-based, needs to be data driven. And when we go out to fight for the industry with government and others and regulators, uh we have to have the evidence to hand uh to support the arguments that we want to make. So hopefully you get a sense from that that we're really working hard both on a very practical level uh to support UK businesses, but also on a strategic uh national industrywide uh level to kind of shift the dial on how we're seen as an industry, uh how we're invested in and supported as an industry. But the only way we can do that um is with your help and support. And so it's brilliant that we've got some of our members in the room. If you're not a member, we would really really love to get you on board because obviously the more of the

UK industry we can represent. Uh the stronger our voice, the more compelling uh the argument that we can present. Um so hopefully you will have I'm not going to bring it up on screen now. We'll we'll bring it up uh afterwards. But hopefully you've been busily adding your feedback uh via menty. uh if you haven't already, this will be open for another 2 or 3 days. Uh so we would really really love to get your thoughts about uh you know, anything I've covered today. Any other needs that you have that you feel we're not meeting that we could really uh really be addressing. Uh but I think I'll close with uh something that we're going to be including in our our future plans, which is just very simple. Hopefully you're feeling inspired and activated to get more involved uh in the work that Yuki uh does. So if you have just a minute um you should receive an email after today's session. Uh do please open that up and and send your feedback about uh this. This is actually my first sort of full public speaking engagement on behalf of Yuki. So uh would love to get your critical

reflections on how that's gone. Um but also to really help us understand what it is that you're looking for from Yuki as your trade association. If you've got five minutes uh do if you haven't already sign up for Yuki download. It's fantastic. It goes out I believe fortnightly. Am I right?
Every week.
Every week.
Every week on Monday. Sorry. Thank you. Um so you can go to uki.org.uk newsletter. Uh sign up for that and that's got uh a range of news about the industry, about the work that we're doing and that's where you're going to be getting early information about um next rounds of things and and kind of future activities. Um, if you've got a bit longer though, we would love you to be an active partner in the kind of change that we're trying to drive uh in the industry over the next 5 years. Our ambition is really uh to shift the dial in terms of how we're seen, how we're understood uh and how we're supported in and and invested in. And so uh we would love you to be part of that. And I know everyone in this room uh has a huge amount of knowledge, expertise, belief

in the power of this industry. So, we just want you to get in touch and get involved and and see uh if you you can become part of what we're trying to achieve uh in terms of moving the industry forward. And then finally, if you're really really committed um we would love to have you on the board or involved in one of our working groups. Uh so, we open nominations to the UK board uh at the end of this month. It's an amazing thing to be involved in. It's a great way to be uh surrounded by really interesting businesses doing some great uh work. But fundamentally a trade association is about people who care about the industry coming together to drive it forward. Uh and so we would love to have you involved in building uh the future of this industry together. So as I say the final call out is please do go here. Uh please do get in touch. Please contact us. I always think that a trade association stands or falls on how good our relationship is with the industry uh that we're here to represent. So if you take nothing else

uh away from today, please do get in touch, tell us what you need and help us uh to move this forward. So that's everything I had for you. Thank you very much uh for your attention. I deliberately kept this short partly because I know people have uh lots of things that you need to um to go and get to. But I think we've got sort of five 10 minutes for questions, comments or any sort of immediate thoughts or feedback. So um have we got a mic in the room? Brilliant. Yes, we do. So, can I just see and if if you would like to ask anything, would you mind just saying who you are, where you're from, just so I know who everybody is. So, has anybody got a question for us?
Amazing. Thank you. Uh, yes, two at once. So, come to you.
Hi. Hello.
Hello.
Hi. I'm Helen from Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. I'm just keen to understand a little bit about how you work with regions because it's brilliant all the work you do with business with um the industry and I just wondered how much of that is kind of through regional organizations.
Yeah, quite uh a lot although it tends

to be on an ad hoc basis and obviously the landscape of city regions has has moved an awful lot and I think will move again in light of the new meril uh board and and all of that. Um so the one of the wonderful things about the UK's video game industry as you know is it's so fantastically geographically dispersed. So we have businesses in almost every corner of of the country and and we're really keen to look at how those businesses are supporting both local inclusive economic growth but also kind of the the sense of identity and growth within city regions. Um so one of the best ways for us at the moment is through the hub crawls is going out and meeting people finding out what's going on in the region and getting a sense of the kind of unique flavor. What we don't have because we're quite a small operation 22 people is is sort of regional support officers. because we haven't got a kind of regionalized infrastructure within Yuki. So, we're kind of dependent on the relationships that we're able to build. But I think part of our strategy over the next 5 years is is you know unquestionably the agenda is going to be around devolution.

Uh and so looking at where games businesses fit into that devolved agenda is going to be key for us. So would love to talk to you afterwards is short answer. I think we had a colleague just here. This is fantastic. Thank you for your hands everyone. Hi um Liz Prince from Amicus. Um thanks very much for that. It was really really great. Um can I just ask about the UK board um and is every member eligible for membership on that board or or to be able to nominate to that board themselves?
So we have two kinds of member. We've got full members who are video game businesses whether very large or very small. Um and we've got partner members who are companies who sell services into the industry. every full member, so every video game business is eligible uh to stand for the board. Partner members aren't. Um, and the reason why we've set things up that way is because we wanted this to be led by video game companies for video game companies at the kind of core of what we do as a trade body. Uh, but yes, so if if you're a company

that's in full membership of UK, whatever scale you're at, then you're eligible to apply to the board.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Uh perhaps if I could come I've got one right at the back just had that your hand up for a while and then if I can come to the front. Thank you.
Hi. Yeah. Uh Carrie and Michelle she her hers Northern Ireland screen. Uh obviously you you're talking about devolution and everything else. we have had a hub crawl but obviously I'm wishing to speak to you to talk about more engagement and again following on about the board you know as a as a government employee who supports uh games companies really really well in Northern Ireland would I be eligible to be nominated for the board as a UK member or is it purely just games companies
currently no so currently it is purely just games companies but it is something we're looking at in terms of the future governance it is really challenging because on the one hand we've got to continue to be a representative trade association. On the other hand, the nature of the industry has diversified so much and there are so many players

involved that I think we need to find a way of bringing those voices in, but it may not be at a governance of the organization level. So, we are exploring options there, but I know the support you're doing is absolutely brilliant. And I think a big part of where we want to go over the next five years is building coalitions, building partnerships. You know, we're 22 people. we can do the things we can do at a a kind of, you know, the scale we can at an industry scale, but we're absolutely dependent on building strong partnerships to to have the kind of impact we want. So, would love to talk to you more, but in governance terms, we're kind of we're not there right now. Lovely. Perhaps if we could come here at the front and then come through. Thank you very much.
Hi there. Thank you for the talk. Um, so my question, you may have covered it, but like you read over it a little bit quickly, but um, so you said that you wanted to uh make this new government the most progame government ever. Um, what core policies are you sort of trying to drive them to uh to adopt? And

if you could like maybe give me your top three.
Yeah. Yeah,
we've got we've got a top three. It's very helpful you asked that question. It's almost like we asked. Um, so the the top three are a digital creativity GCSE because that that invests in the long-term uh skills. Um, extending uh VGEC, the the video game expenditure credit because that's so bedrock to the economics of getting a game made and then um renewing and growing the UK games fund. And and those three are really solid starters. They're quite easy to do. They're very low cost to be honest. So that's why we're doing the the calculations on them at the moment. there is a longerterm ambition which is I think we need a portfolio of different kinds of interventions that are better designed around the games industry. So at the moment we're we're inheriting quite a lot of interventions from different places or methods that were created for other industries. And so what we want to do when I when I talk about making this the most pro games parliament in history is to see at the other end of this parliament a suite of support interventions that are designed

around and for the needs of the video game industry. So that's that's where we're going to try and take it. But also, I mean, 300 new MPs, they're all, you know, 35, 45. Uh, a lot of them have picked up a controller or played a game or are mobile gamers. Um, and so we really want to lean into that because there's been a sort of fundamental drag effect on people who don't understand the industry and what it's all about. So, we want to make friends with those people.
Yeah.
Andy Coley from Game Studio Training, recent new partner member. Um,
you're new to the industry, you're new to the role. Yeah. What's been one of the biggest biases or aha moments you've had now that you've had the chance to get to know people in the industry? What's kind of what was one of the biggest surprises or or thoughts you hadn't have on the outside that you've learned by being on the inside?
That's a really great and totally unfair question. Um, so no, it's a really great question. Uh, the thing I hadn't fully got my brain around is quite how unique the industry is at the intersection of

technology, creativity, and community. I really haven't got that because it is different from any other creative industry I've I've ever worked in. So I I've just talked to people today who are technical wizards. I mean developers on a level that that are just kind of beyond anything I've seen anywhere else. I've got people who are building very large communities. Now I used to chair the Wikipedia community in the UK. So I know what it's like to try and support kind of big communities creating content and this is just a scale you know above and beyond. So I think the work the industry's done to create a unique vertical for itself um came as a real real surprise and a real opportunity. And for me that's where I think there's still this lag effect where a lot of the supporting structures for the industry were designed for other things. They were designed for film. They were designed for social media. And so our aim is is really to say this is a vertical in its own right. It's an art form in its own right. It's a creative sector in its own right. And therefore it needs its own structures. Brilliant. Thank you. Yeah, I think

fantastic. Lovely. How we doing? Right.
Hi there. Uh Simon Scott. I have a focus on uh corporate development and investment management. I'm very very curious from the investability perspective. And I wondered if uh within the 5-year plan would be a focus on for example how can interactive entertainment be an investable asset class and helping the corporations make themselves more investable. Yeah, fantastic question and my part of my background was in um corporate finance while I was at UBS for a bit. So looking at this as a kind of asset class is a really interesting uh approach. I mean I think um I think a few things there. So investors have taken fright understandably I think to a degree um and so we need to rebuild investor confidence and that means kind of really strengthening how video games businesses are looked at as an investment opportunity and an investment risk. So I think on on one level the reason why I talk about kind of building a better shock absorber for the industry is so

that investors have greater confidence in putting that money in in a in a structured way. So I I think there's a need to build those structures. I also think there's a real capability kind of question around the right kind of money going into businesses. So what's the money for? When do we need it? How's it going to kind of move us on to the next stage of of development? So how do we make this a really great place to raise? but also how do we become a really good industry at raising the right kind of finance at at the right opportunity and then yes I think there's some really exciting stuff in terms of what kind of asset class do we fit into and to be honest I think that's as true for government I don't think treasury quite knows what kind of asset the video game industry or or you know investing in video game businesses is um and so repositioning the the kind of risk appetite and the the reward profile I think is going to be really really important which is a long way of saying yes it's in the um uh the the kind of immediate practical things I think are around um building a supply chain of finance and helping investors to

understand where they fit into it. But in the long run, I'm really interested in whether there are innovative models of investment or or better ways of structuring investment into video game businesses. Um so yes is the short answer.
No problem. Uh did I see another hand? Yes, I did. Thank you.
Hi Carrie Michelle from Northern Ireland Screen again. a follow-up to your investment, would you be looking at models like we have in Northern Ireland where you know I have various levels of prototype funding to take the risk away from people developing an idea and then we actually underwrite to a certain level uh development funding and so forth you know is that something you'd be looking at to
absolutely unquestion based so there have been a few models that have already been pointed out to me one is yours uh another one is a model in um the Flemish part of Belgium which is providing a kind of 75% investment in uh we've also just seen the German uh equivalent of the UK games fund have its funding knocked up to around I think it's 40

million somebody will correct me if I have that wrong um based on a very clear understanding of the return that that comes back from that so yeah I I think this has been you know this is a path well traveled I think there's an awful lot we can learn from how other people are doing this already there is a little bit in our engagement with government so far about celebrating where we've come you know so what's the good that VGTR and VGC are are doing already. What's the good that the UK games fund is doing? But then I think when I talk about building a portfolio of gamefriendly interventions, I think that's something you've done brilliantly is looking at kind of what are the needs along the supply chain and then how do you intervene with public money in a structured way to derisk that investment. So yeah, I mean the ambition is to learn from what's working already.
Brilliant. Thank you. Have I exhausted everybody? Is everybody excited by the prospect? Oh, sorry. Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Hello there. Thank you for your talk. Um I'm my name is Hassan. I'm the event manager for EGX, uh the UK video games show. Um I think

we have the same goals. You want to put uh the UK games industry on the map. We want to put the UK games industry on the map. Uh one of the your bullet points that interested me was uh exposure at international and UK events. Uh could you shed a bit more light on that? Is that a guidance? Is it funding? Is it partnerships? Could you shed a bit of light on that? Thank you.
Yeah. So, I mean on on a simplistic level, it's things like Gamescom, making sure that we continue to have a really strong UK representation. So, we're kind of celebrating the industry and giving people opportunities for exposure to trade. Um, but more than that, I think it's it's sometimes being in new rooms. So rather than necessarily uh talking to ourselves as an industry going to places where um there's interplay with other sectors. So the reason why I was at a fashion event thank you very much uh the other day was to look at opportunities for partnership and exposure raising with the fashion uh and creative industries. So one of the things I'm really really keen to do is to step up to the fact that we are now defining

culture. We're now incredibly visible. Video games are culture for you know an entire generation of people. And I think at the moment that the kind of manifestation of the industry in the public domain is is not quite there yet. So we are really interested in looking at partners who can help us raise that profile and exposure. Fantastic. So I've had a a fivem minute card and I'm not seeing any other hands up. I'm not seeing anything frankly but uh uh so with that I think we'll draw the session to a close. Cannot thank you enough uh for coming along. It's really really helpful and and uh uh thank you so much. enjoy whatever you're going to do in the evening, whether that's football or something culturally enriching. So, uh, yeah, look forward to catching up soon. Thank you.