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UziT

Video Games Industry in UK

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Hey folks,

 

Just wanted to get some of your guys input on about the video game industry in the UK and does it really get recognised on a global scale?

 

Ive just started working in a small mobile games company and we had CEO of Blitz Games Studio's Philip Oliver reach out to us about a campaign he has started about getting UK based game studios to add a logo at the start up of their games, or on the their website, to show the the game is made in the UK.

 

He says that the UK public/gamers are not aware the we have a games industry, or anyone else in the world. Do you agree?

 

Personally we don't have figures like Gabe Newell, Cliffy B and Kevin Levine representing any studio's. Peter Molyneux when at Lionhead was I think representing the UK in someway but he was plain...weird.

 

You guys opinion would be lovely!

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I agree. We have quite a large industry in the UK, much larger than people realise. I think some more presence would be a good thing.

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I'd happen to agree.

 

I currently work for Jagex (RuneScape and Transformers for those unaware) and its surprising that so many people don't know who Jagex is. Recently they released a statement about the company making a turn over of 50 million. That's an incredible amount of money and its all in house in Cambridge!

 

However, that being said, whilst people in the UK do not recognise Jagex as a gaming company, its easy enough to get them to recognise RuneScape, it has a pretty big community here. :)

 

So yeah why not? Making gaming companies more well known is never a bad thing imo.

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Hey nightwolf, looks like your company is one of the supporters of this campaign. And to be honest I had heard of Jagex but I had no idea they were based in UK.

 

Thats great to know :)

Edited by UziT

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Hey nightwolf, looks like your company is one of the supporters of this campaign. And to be honest I had heard of Jagex but I had no idea they were best in UK.

 

Thats great to know :)

 

Aha! Should have known, its good the company as a whole is supporting the industry. I believe we work with Blitz on Ace of Spades? So maybe there's the connection there.

 

(Ace of Spades is actually incredibly fun - I'm currently testing it. Looks like Blitz hand a massive hand in making it.)

 

It also looks like Frontier is supporting this too, they are just round the corner from us (literally).

 

:heart:

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I think many people would probably be confused if they saw "Made in the UK" ("Made in Creative UK" sounds silly) at the start of games like GTAV and the LEGO games. There are other developers who are quite big like Sumo Digital, Codemasters, Rocksteady and Ubisoft Reflections who make games that most people probably don't realise were made in this country.

 

I couldn't remember Blitz, but from a search it seemed they made Glover. Although their games after that aren't so good.

 

It's a shame those tax breaks failed - the tax help that film studios get are doing wonders for the British film industry.

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Just moved this over to general gaming discussion, which seems more appropriate.

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You may be aware of it already, but Game Dev Map plots locations of developers around the world. Could be useful for you.

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I think this is an excellent idea, I am just a gamer and don't keep up with who's who, so I'm completely, most of the time, unaware of where a game originates from. And as such, am completely unaware of the expanse of the British gaming industry which I have always assumed to be on the side of small.

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Really it's a bit illogical to do it for just one country. It should be an all or nothing scenario...I'm for the all scenario.

 

Nintendo does things like this sometimes in their eShop with a "Made in ____" category. I liked to have a look at these things

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It was many years before I had any idea that Rare, who propped Nintendo up heavily over the years in addition to making some of the most renowned and well-recieved games to date, was a UK games studio. I think it's very easy to assume games are just not UK made; but we've had some really great talent that gets overlooked. I think a campaign like this is a brilliant idea!

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I know that DJ Hero was developed here in Royal Leamington Spa.

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I know that DJ Hero was developed here in Royal Leamington Spa.

 

Shhh bob... there's a lot better game development going on in Leamington than that! ;-)

 

I think that it's a good idea if only for a bit of British pride. We find it hard to identify stuff that as a nation we're pretty world class at. Would it be good if people here actually recognised that both our games and special effects industries were up there with the best in the world?

 

If American's can celebrate in being the movie industry centre of the world why can't we do the same?

 

The UK games industry had a phenomenal amount of talent in it which has unfortunately been absorbed into many of the conglomerates. The gaming superheroes that started in their garages back in the Spectrum days got bought up the EAs and Sonys but they did/do produce some fantastic games.

 

When I think about the amount of beloved franchises that are exclusively British or were born in Britain, I do get a big smile across my face.

 

Another thing people might not be aware of is how internationally successful some games are. Both Football Manager and Total War sell bucketloads in territories that most of us don't even think really get games. Have you ever heard about games getting localised into Polish, Russian and Czech a matter of weeks after an almost global release (which already had all of the western european languages and Scandinavian ones too!)

 

That's some serious goddam game happy right there. MWAH!

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SI think that it's a good idea if only for a bit of British pride. We find it hard to identify stuff that as a nation we're pretty world class at. Would it be good if people here actually recognised that both our games and special effects industries were up there with the best in the world?

 

If American's can celebrate in being the movie industry centre of the world why can't we do the same?

 

Thanks to Disney (Avengers, Star Wars), the UK seems to be getting a lot of recognition for our film studios.

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The UK special effects industry has been strong for the best part of a decade (Harry Potter being one of the first big franchises), but most people probably wouldn't have realised two different London-based studios worked on Man of Steel (MPC and Double Negative).

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Shhh bob... there's a lot better game development going on in Leamington than that! ;-)

 

 

 

Actually, Leamington had a small 'game development exhibit' a couple of months ago in one of the empty shops just off the parade.

 

It was......uninspiring.

 

I think that Flashpoint: Red River was developed near here somewhere......

 

EDIT: yeah, in Southam. Game wasn't very good though...

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Many people seem to forget that Grand Theft Auto - arguably the biggest franchise in gaming - is made in Edinburgh.

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