Give us your opinion about the British Games Institute

10 thoughts on “Give us your opinion about the British Games Institute”

1. It seems like a really positive idea, especially the principle of protecting heritage, although I do wonder how this differs from UKIE and how the two organisations will coexist. Personally I always thought the organisation we missed in the UK was a professional representation of practitioners, something like the Institute of Physics, so I will be interested to see how that side of things pans out.

   But my real passion, or should I say bugbear, in the UK is education, and especially the proliferation of games courses within Universities in recent years. Some are good, one or two may be excellent, but most are just jumping on the bandwagon as they see a course which will be popular and attractive to students bringing in fees. I have seen some of these courses from the inside, and I am also aware that much of UK industry had a very mixed view of their output. The percentage of students taking these courses who find a job is woefully small, because either their courses are not taught with any real practical industry experience, or the students are unfortunately not good enough at intake to cope with such a highly technical subject, or both. This not only taints the bad courses but also to some extent the good ones. So I come to my point, will the new BGI look into the quality of games courses in the UK? I mentioned the Institute of Physics as I was a member when I taught in Physics, and the institute ran a formal ratification program. I think something like that would be a real step forward, as would their practices of professional development which I think the BGI is also interested in. I would be interested to hear your reply on this subject.

   Reply

   1. Thanks for the comment and your support Simon.

      The role of the BGI as a national agency funding production, culture and education programmes is being designed to be very distinct from, but complementary to, the role of trade bodies representing and lobbying on behalf of paying memberships of companies. We have been designing the BGI in close collaboration with both TIGA and ukie, which means defining programmes that do not conflict with the many valuable initiatives being run by both trade bodies. That collaboration should be continual as BGI moves forward.

      The Next Gen Skills report identified real problems in the quality of many university degrees in 2011, and we agree that some problems persist. However, our sense is that the general quality of games degrees has increased substantially since then, in part due to TIGA accreditation, in part due to degree courses working in much closer collaboration with industry, and in part because some bandwagon games courses have closed down. Creative Skillset also accredits university games degree courses and Next Gen Skills Academy helps hundreds of school leavers earn great quality diplomas in preparation for jobs in industry or degree courses. This is quite a crowded educational area for BGI to try to add value to, whereas the Continuing Professional Development area is one facing a significant gap after Creative Skillset’s Skills Investment Fund for games was not renewed this year. So we’re liaising with industry and some leading games universities to identify where BGI can add value in education, and will raise your concerns accordingly.

      Reply

2. What do you think about the proposal for a new national games agency as a whole?

   Great idea. A cultural front to UK games rather than just a business one is needed.

   Do you think that the proposed structure of the finance programme will assist games companies? If not, what alternatives would you recommend?

   Somewhat, but we need to ensure a range of studios are supported. This is size, experience, but more importantly – the diversity of the team leading the studio. We need more female, BAME and people with disability lead studios. Although there’s support for workers with various groups, there’s nothing in regards to funding. UK Games Fund this year failed to fund ANY female lead studio (particularly annoying for us considering we put forward our proven market, BAFTA nominated for innovation title to be properly funded, and still didn’t get it!).
   There’s a real problem in business when having a female lead ruins your chances of funding; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691066.2017.1349266
   “It’s a well-known, well-documented fact that women entrepreneurs face an uphill battle in the fight to get funding for their businesses. But a new study suggests that it can actually be almost impossible. According to the study, published Tuesday in the journal Venture Capital, having even one woman on a company’s team makes them far less likely to get funding than an entirely male one. In fact, an all male team is about four times more likely to get funding than teams with any women on them. The study was done by researchers at Babson College and Wellesley, and looked at data on 6,793 companies funded between 2011 and 2013. This is the first large-scale study in a decade to focus on women’s efforts to get funding, and it’s not encouraging. The authors write, “We did not determine any significant performance differences between companies with women CEOs from companies with men CEOs, so it is quite surprising that women are still, practically speaking, shut out of the market for venture capital funding, both as CEOs and participants of executive teams.””

   So we need protected funds support for studios with diverse leads.

   How do you think we could best promote the genius of British-made games to the public?

   Games are rarely fronted by developers themselves. When a game is shown by Sony/Nintendo/MS at EGX or any other expos, teams of marketing come in rather than the developers themselves showing the games. People who I talk to at events we’ve shown at are always surprised that it was I who actually made the game. They just assume that I’m also some sort of marketing person. When they do find out, they don’t stop asking questions about the game, about how it was made, and how they can make a game too. It makes developers seem human!
   I’m not sure of the solution, but we need to encourage studios to share the names, photos, portfolios of the team who created the game, rather than just a line in some credits gamers always skip. Encourage studios to send out actual staff to events, support them to do that in some way.
   Be proud of people rather than of game IPs or studio names.

   What do you think about a national games festival that travels like a City of Culture through the different games clusters each year and promotes local talent?

   Travelling is critical. Having moved to Bude in Cornwall (3 hours bus to a train station, somewhere where it’s impossible for kids to get to a city), we’re doing loads of ground work at the local school to show that games is a viable career. When all they see around them is farming, cafe work or B&B – then that’s all they assume they can do. There minds are blown at the careers fairs we do, and again it humanises development. We can’t expect an EGX in every town, but having a touring event with branching fringes to small towns and villages in the poorest areas of the country is crucial for these kids and the local industry.

   What skills gaps or requirements do you have in your organisation or as an individual?
   Production.

   Would you be interested in online training in 10 different production and commercial disciplines each year?
   Online? Free? Yes, as long as it’s something I can catch up on in my own time.

   Something else;
   I want to see a diverse range of people leading up the BGI. The board sounded like it was going to be the usual faces you see (“from stakeholder groups”). I want to be seeing entirely fresh set of faces, and people from all sorts of studios, history, gender, minority etc. Everyone from within UK games needs to have a chance at being on the board, or having a say on who is on it. We don’t want it to be only people who network in some groups, who have ran x-amount of studios. I would like every games developer to feel part of the process no matter if they lead or if they have just started there first year as a junior programmer, if they are part of an existing group or not.

   Reply

   1. Thanks for the great comments Katie. Some responses:

      We really support your call on diversity, which is at the heart of our plans:

      The BGI needs to reflect and promote the more diverse future of the games industry, not the less diverse industry we have today. This is true of the organisation itself as well as its brand. BGI will accomplish this by baking diversity into its funding criteria, into its recruitment strategy and brand, and through role-modelling / PR. The BGI will advertise its staff roles to diverse communities, leading to a more diverse staff. This also means being proactive about showing a diverse brand for the industry both online and in public. And finally, the diversity of the Board is critical too. We want to reflect the whole industry, not just existing power structures. We are liaising with Women in Games and BAME in Games as we put the programmes together.

      A bit more on funding criteria: We want to fund games productions from teams that can display 3 out of 4 of these criteria: innovation, diversity (gender/BAME/sexual orientation), new talent and commercial potential. By baking these criteria into the programme’s design, we will actively fund innovative, diverse projects and help new talent into the industry.

      Investment assistance for female founders: To widen the investment circle for games we need more investors famioliar with games and so we will reach out to new funders including the Female Founders Fund and AllBright, and others, when we have female-led award recipients.

      Also, the culture fund will be open to projects investigating the role of diversity in the sector.

      On promoting developers vs marketing: We totally agree. The public engagement work we want to do is about promoting the genius of our creators. As David Puttnam said to us, games need to sell their success more. That means the creative people behind our amazing games, as much as the games themselves. BAFTA is great at this. The role-modelling work we want to do highlighting the creators is another strand of that.

      Finally, we will keep talking to the industry throughout our programmes, running consultations through each year and adjusting as we go, based on your feedback.

      Thanks for the helpful comments

      Reply

3. I felt that it was worth approaching each of the considered question and to answer these directly with some statements and proposed conversational points.
   • What do you think about the proposal for a new national games agency as a whole?
   Ultimately the proposal is exactly what’s needed, it’s a proven program already working in other industries so why not the games industry?
   • Do you think that the proposed structure of the finance programme will assist games companies?
   Absolutely, I would of course like to pitch an idea regarding other branches of the games industry that isn’t directly related but ultimately as important.
   • How do you think we could best promote the genius of British-made games to the public?
   Invest in British and offering accessibility to international gaming expos to offer free event space to British games developers.
   • What do you think about a national games festival that travels like a City of Culture through the different games clusters each year and promotes local talent?
   I would love it, this is actually something I am trying to figure out myself
   • What skills gaps or requirements do you have in your organisation or as an individual?
   I would love to have official press accreditation solely for the games industry. As a enthusiast that regular travels it helps to be press so I can report on events, shows and even travel abroad to do the same, which I cannot do.
   • Would you be interested in online training in 10 different production and commercial disciplines each year?
   I world, I think Marketing, pitching and PR are skills that developers will need to understand if not have now the rise of indie dev is happening.
   • How should we account for the BGI’s programmes to the games sector once they are up and running?
   Having industry recognised accreditation and awards will help encourage teams to grow their skills and ultimately their companies.
   • How can we persuade the government to fund this proposal?
   If they consider that the games industry is currently earning more than movies in it’s contribution and worth then surely, they can see the return on the investment to fund the British games industry?

   Dean Noakes
   Noaksey.com

   Reply

   1. Thanks for the support Dean and for the considered response to our questions.

      Re idea pitch, we’re trying to create a broad church – so non-commercial games ideas and non-digital games as culture projects will be eligibile for the finance and culture programmes respectively.

      Re expos – UKIE can provide trade show grants and we’ve deferred to them on that for now, but useful to hear.

      We’ll take on board and consider your other ideas – some really useful stuff in there.

      Thank you!

      Reply

4. >> What do you think about the proposal for a new national games agency as a whole?

   The proposal clearly communicates the BGI’s mission. It’s encouraging that the value of games has been considered in terms beyond contribution to the economy.

   As there is no separate question regarding the Culture Programme:

   Perhaps there should be a requirement for (at least a proportion of the) games projects that benefit from the Culture Programme to be made freely available, along with source code, tools, teaching materials, etc. to the fullest extent practically possible?

   >> Do you think that the proposed structure of the finance programme will assist games companies?

   As described, I think it has potential to benefit a broad spectrum of UK developers.

   It would be worth clarifying how the assessors will be selected – will they be exclusively drawn from the industry, or will academics, critics, representatives from other fields, representatives of general audience etc. be included? I would also echo Katie Goode’s point above that we can and should do better to provide access to funding to members of underepresented groups.

   It’s also not entirely clear why the VGTR cultural test is applicable (unless it’s for legal reasons similar to why it’s in place for VGTR).

   >> How do you think we could best promote the genius of British-made games to the public?

   Aside from getting games ambassadors out and engaging with the media — Probably a voluntary BGI branding programme, with particular emphasis on adding the branding to trailers, TV/cinema/outdoor ads, etc. – similar to the ‘Made in Creative UK’ initiative, and the various BFI and Lottery logo programmes for UK film. The real challenge will be to get traditionally brand/product(vs. people)-focused large studios and publishers involved.

   >> What do you think about a national games festival that travels like a City of Culture through the different games clusters each year and promotes local talent?

   The more games events the merrier, although it would be preferable if such a festival wasn’t completely commercially focused. London is (comparatively) well served when it comes to games arts events, and it should be part of the BGI’s mission to expand the definition of games, and awareness of the multidisciplinary opportunities they offer, to the non-specialist/enthusiast audience outside the capital.

   >> How can we persuade the government to fund this proposal?

   By showing it would represent value for money & a public good, that there’s broad industry support for the proposal, and that it would put goals in reach that can’t be met by the various pre-existing organisations.
   Social class, connections, commercial success and length of CV should not preclude anyone from getting involved.

   Reply

   1. Great stuff. Thanks for these ideas. A few comments

      Re sharing projects benefitting from the Culture programme, that’s one definitely worth considering. It might tie some lawyers up in knots with IP rights but the public good argument is compelling.

      Re diversity of assessors, that’s a really interesting suggestion. Our starting point was a small team of games people backed by a wider panel that would check assumptions after the funding team has made its first assessments. The make up of that group should be a route to ensure diversity as well.

      The VGTR test is a technical point – we need to avoid being a State Aid, which a) caps funding to £150k / 3 years / company (de minimis) and b) damages the tax reliefs that incentivise investors at the earliest stages. Unlike many other games grants available today, we’d award only to cultural products, which are legally exempt from de minimis and are not a state aid, so the cultural test is a necessary but low bar for awarded projects.

      Love the branding idea. We are indebted to ‘Made in Creative UK’ for getting the word out about BGI, so are working with them already. Making that happen across platforms will be a challenge but not impossible.

      London is indeed well-served but its festival is a great template. We want to see a travelling national festival that treads the common ground between commercial games that are known by the public at large and the amazing, creative work being done by games as culture festivals and artists. Things like Playable Cities and Wild Rumpus are inspirations for what we want the Festival to be and we want to work with thw widest definition of games. Great to hear validation of that position.

      Re persuasion of government, I hope we’ll be able to do that – or more accurately, we will fail if we can’t demonstrate that.

      Thanks for great ideas Robin

      Reply

5. >> What do you think about the proposal for a new national games agency as a whole?
   Very much in favour of this, and close collaboration with UKIE etc. (as outlined here) is crucial to ensure no duplication (or conflict) of effort. There are probably region-specific bodies that should be involved e.g. in Scotland, we have the Scottish Games Network run by Brian Baglow and IGDA (which again has a very active Scottish chapter) appears to be missing from the proposal, unless I’ve missed something. IGDA Scotland are already running industry events and trying to tackle similar issue e.g. re: funding, so they should definitely be looped in on this.

   I would also echo Katie’s points about diversity, both in terms of funding (which you have addressed in comments above) and in terms of the running of the agency. Of course, coming from a university, I would say this, but the education sector should be represented, and ‘smaller’ players in the industry must be involved – if it’s just the usual big names running things, there’s a danger that new and emerging issues faced by start-ups and small indie teams will not be at the forefront of the agency’s thinking (or, at least, that’s how the agency might be perceived).

   >> Do you think that the proposed structure of the finance programme will assist games companies?
   This isn’t my area of expertise, but from talking to developers and seeing games dev students head out into the world, I have little doubt that something along these lines is required. And, coming from an Arts & Humanities perspective, the emphasis on games as cultural artefacts seems appropriate – the ‘cultural test’ or any similar criteria need to be as loose as possible, however, in order to for the funding to be accessible to those who need it, and to ensure their vision is not compromised.

   >> What do you think about a national games festival that travels like a City of Culture through the different games clusters each year and promotes local talent?
   Very much in favour of this too! Again, close ties/collaboration with local/regional groups will be key here.

   >> Would you be interested in online training in 10 different production and commercial disciplines each year?
   As mentioned above, areas such as marketing and PR would be of great value, especially to newly-graduated developers and start-ups. I’d add financial management to this list.

   Matthew Barr, University of Glasgow

   Reply

6. >> What do you think about the proposal for a new national games agency as a whole?
   The National Games Agency is a positive step forward in recognising the industry and promoting it across the board as a valid creative medium, helping to alter unhelpful perceptions of making games. Much along the lines of previous comments here – collaboration is key, looking at what other bodies are driving this initiative forward and ensuring a holistic approach rather than combative – this includes Ukie, TIGA, working with those focused on education too, like BAFTA and Digi School House.

   There are few scholarly articles on the games industry as a business and its full impact (other than linking games to anti-social behaviours). Partnering with NESTA and having them fully integrated will give credence and authority to published reports, recommendations and outcomes.

   >> Do you think that the proposed structure of the finance programme will assist games companies?
   While the proposed structure of the finance programme is a great start, much more is needed. Companies need more than funding to get to the stage of release, and seeing that through to a successful product on the market. Knowledge, especially on legals, publishing and marketing are required, and ongoing support for those who are building their business. A centralised pool of Business Development Advisers specific to the games industry would provide invaluable support, often the barrier to accessing finance programmes like this is the time, resource and knowledge to guide them through the application process.

   It’s fantastic to hear you’re working with Women in Games and BAME in Games and that diversity is a running theme across all of your pillars.

   Reply