The BGI

The BGI and Bath Spa University have won Research Council funding to start a new games heritage preservation project that builds ties between Japan and the UK to preserve games heritage.

The project brings together Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Bath Spa University and the National Videogame Museum (NVM) in Sheffield to identify and share best practice in game preservation, curation and exhibition. The project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

A series of collaborations, visits and research starts in May 2019, when the BGI’s Head of Collections Professor James Newman and NVM Director of Culture Iain Simons visit Kyoto, before leading Japanese videogames heritage academics, including the legendary Japanese hardware designer Masayuki Uemura, former head of R&D at Nintendo, visit the UK later in the summer.

The work brings together experts from some of the world’s leading videogames heritage preservation institutions to map the preservation of ‘at risk’ videogames material, identify the latest innovations in the curation and exhibition of videogames and investigate solutions to legal, technical and infrastructural impediments to their preservation and exhibition. A parallel series of events and lectures are planned in both countries before articles are published in journals in early 2020.

The project is a step towards a large-scale exhibition with the NVM in 2020 that will foreground the underrepresented histories of UK and Japanese game development, culture and practice, including the decades of interactions and flows of talent and creativity between these two pioneers and key players in videogaming.

James Newman, Professor of Digital Media at Bath Spa University, said “Videogames are a vital part of contemporary popular culture but they’re in danger of disappearing. As old systems and storage media fail, we run the risk of losing access to games forever so it’s essential that we take steps to preserve them for future generations of players, gamemakers and researchers. Working with the National Videogame Museum and Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies ensures that the project brings together world-leading institutions in the field and allows us to take a truly international approach to the challenges of game preservation, interpretation and exhibition.”

Iain Simons, Director of Culture for the BGI and NVM, said “We’re honoured to be working on this new research project, hoping to add to the knowledge and best-practise of museums around the World through this exciting collaboration. The NVM is an international institution and has enjoyed a long relationship with our esteemed colleagues in Ritsumeikan University as well as colleagues from around the World. Videogames are a global culture, so it’s right that videogame interpretation and preservation is a global effort. We’re excited to be playing our part!”

Continue reading “BGI and Bath Spa University lead British-Japanese collaboration to preserve games heritage”

The GamesEd19 conference closed today with a succession of spirited discussions about the state of games education involving over 100 games universities, studios and 3rd sector organisations.

The Summit was generously supported by Epic Games, Sheffield Hallam University, Grads in Games, Kollider, Staffordshire University and Aim Awards, and was organised by the BGI with pivotal assistance from BGI Advisory Board member Philip Oliver from GameDragons.

Delegates from over 50 different universities and further education colleges, more than 30 studios and other related organisations such as recruiters and non-profits debated how industry engages with educators, how educators prepare students for working in games studios, the need for greater diversity amongst students, lecturers and developers, and the strategic requirements for bridging the gap between industry and education

The Summit featured practical case studies of how industry worked with educators to create Level 3 diplomas and apprenticeships.

Ian Livingstone CBE, Dr. Jake Habgood from Sheffield Hallam University, Mike Gamble from Epic Games and Dr Chris Lowthorpe from the London College of Communication gave keynotes.

Feedback from delegates on the inaugural event was positive and constructive, with many, including a new working group focused on practical outputs and new programmes, looking forward to the 2020 Summit which will take place in April 2020.

The BGI would like to thank all attendees, panelists and moderators for their input and vigorous discussions.

Please see a picture below of our keynote discussion from Ian Livingstone.

Rick wrote the following article for the women in games campaign, which launched yesterday.

Over 20 years, I’ve watched the games sector change beyond recognition, apart from the gender profile in our developers, which is changing excruciatingly slowly by comparison. The sector is missing opportunities in audience, creative and economic potential from a more diverse workforce, but a concerted push by multiple agencies could trigger real, meaningful change.

Both men and women are gamers

The old stereotype – that games are played exclusively by young males – died two decades ago. Today, players’ genders reflect the general population in the West, yet the people who make games in British companies are still overwhelmingly male. If your developers reflect your audience, you’re more likely to deliver something your audience will enjoy.

Monocultures destroy creativity, damage staff retention and make staff less productive. They should be anathema to a creative industry that thrives on ideas. Diverse teams create better products from more sources of inspiration, contrasting viewpoints and stronger, broader ideas.

Financial gains for diverse companies

Diverse companies also perform better economically than non-diverse companies. A recent study found that companies with diverse executive teams are 21% more likely to have above-average profits. Simply put, companies become more viable, sustainable and profitable with diverse teams and boards.

Supply limits demand

Studios often do hire in their own image but they’re at the end of a long supply chain that starts young and is, whether inadvertently or not, filtering out more diverse candidates from an early age. Fewer girls learn to code than boys. More females drop STEM subjects at GCSE, which leads to fewer female candidates taking games diplomas and fewer studying games development at university, despite unprecedented growth in such courses in recent years. Too few female candidates make studios’ shortlists and so change stalls.

Get in early to encourage women and girls into gaming careers

What to do about it? Berating the games sector for not being diverse hasn’t worked. To tackle this intractable problem, you have to start young, at the beginning of that talent supply chain. If young females are not shown the potential of a career in games at an early age, then they won’t choose foundation subjects to build careers in games. Inspirational programmes such as Women in Games’ Ambassador programme are leading the way.

Work together to improve the visibility of opportunities

The games sector has a range of educational programmes like our Pixelheads after-school clubs and National Videogame Museum, Digital Schoolhouse, NextGen Skills Academy, TIGA university accreditation, our training programmes and Women in Games’ other programmes. They’re great, but mostly underfunded and badly signposted, which makes it difficult for young females to navigate a career path into games.

We’re working with many of these programmes plus leading further/higher education partners to collaborate and coordinate a new pan-sector initiative to tackle this deep-rooted problem through all of our programmes. There are signs that industry is getting the message and ready to change. A concerted approach from all the third sector organisations can have major impact on improving the supply of talented young women into games companies.

The BGI is proud to support the launch of the Women in Games campaign, which is driving home the message about the need for more diversity in games studios in the UK and is supported by our friends at TIGA and Ukie.

You can read more about it here.

Thanks to MediaPlanet for organising the campaign, which we will be promoting at the National Videogame Museum, at the Games Education Summit 2019 and online.

Grads in Games Awards & ‘Search for a Star’ & ‘Sumo Digital Rising Star’ Finals and Conference Day returns on April 17th, with this year’s event being even bigger and better than ever.

Brought to you by Grads in Games (an Aardvark Swift initiative) this year’s event is being held at Sheffield Hallam University and The National Videogame Museum on April 17th from 9am to 8pm.

The event is free to all students in games education, lecturers and academics involved in games related courses, and games industry professionals who are interested in the next generation of developers. For ticket information contact martin@aswift.com

There will be talks throughout the day from games industry professionals, an academic round table discussion with UK games studios and games educators, and a networking lunch between industry professionals, students and academics.

Confirmed speakers for this year’s event include:

Phil Owen – d3t

Jason Avent – TT Odyssey

Philip Oliver – Game Dragons

Attendees can also meet with studios exhibiting on the day to chat about the industry and careers. Current confirmed exhibitors are Sumo Digital, TT Odyssey, nDreams, d3t, Wargaming, Bulkhead Interactive.

Our industry judges will be interviewing the competition finalists on the day, the last stage for participants after battling their way through two competition rounds over the past few months. Final deliberations will be made, and the winners decided.

The day is rounded off at The National Videogame Museum with the Grads in Games Awards and the crowning of this year’s category winners of the Search For A Star and Sumo Digital Rising Star competitions.

This event couldn’t be organised without the help and support of the Grads in Games partners: Boss Alien, d3t, Epic, Firesprite, First Touch Games, nDreams, Red Kite Games, Sumo Digital.

For more info on our sponsors, visit our website to see their profiles www.gradsingames.com.

Our partners the Serpentine Galleries have issued a call for proposals for a project called Serpentine Augmented Architecture, a brand new AR commission that will be available for the public to view on site at the Serpentine in Summer 2019.

They are keen to reach a wide range of creative practitioners from game designers to artists and technologists to respond to a brief developed with Sir David Adjaye and Google.

The Serpentine Galleries are very forward thinking about bringing the worls of the Arts and games together in ambitious, playful digital installations, and have commissioned games before.

The deadline is the 25 February, 10AM GMT.

The website for the open call is also here:

http://www.augmentedarchitecture.org/

Sheffield, 07/02/2019: New conference bridging the gap between games educators and games sector launches in April.

The BGI is launching a new conference on games education to be held at Ko-Host, Sheffield’s new city centre event space at Kollider and the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield on Monday 15th – Tuesday 16th April. The Games Education Summit 2019 brings together 40 games course leaders from further and higher education, developers and HR staff from studios, recruitment companies, 3rd sector organisations and policymakers to trigger more collaboration, dialogue and best practice sharing in the first of a series of annual conferences.

Over 1.5 days, the conference will tackle the big issues in games education including employability, diversity, skills required by studios, apprenticeships, how industry can collaborate with educators, best practice pedagogical and course design and starting up from university.

Keynotes will be delivered by Ian Livingstone CBE, Mike Gamble from Epic Games, Dr Jake Habgood from Sheffield Hallam University and Dr Chris Lowthorpe from London College of Communication.

The Summit is sponsored by Sheffield Hallam University, Epic Games, Kollider, Aardvark Swift, Staffordshire University and AIM Awards.

Tickets can be purchased here.

Other speakers from the educational sector include Dr Alan O’Dea from Staffordshire University, Dr Sharon Tolaini-Sage from Norwich University of the Arts, Abertay University, Fede Fasce from Goldsmiths, Dr Carlo Harvey from Birmingham City University, Dr Umran Ali from Salford University, Dr Charlie Hargood from Bournemouth University, Falmouth University, Dr Peter Howell  from Portsmouth University, Teesside University, Dr Chris Windmill from Derby University, Chris Headleand from Lincoln University, Jane Reed and Ant Cain from Sunderland College, James Bennett-Hill and Matthew Goodlad from The Sheffield College and Geoff Moore from the Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies.

 Other speakers from the sector include Philip Oliver from GameDragons, Rick Gibson from the BGI, Ian Goodall from Aardvark Swift, 3 speakers from Rebellion, Karen Hedger from AIM, Karen Mcloughlin from Sumo, Melissa Jo Knox from Rare, Emma Smith from Creative Assembly, Marcia Deakin from NextGen Skills Academy, Marie-Claire Isaaman from Women in Games, Tom Murray from Dovetail Games, David Smith from Interactive Selection, Nick Duncombe from Playground Games, Unit 2 Games, Mark Eyles from TIGA and Dan Wood from Ukie.

The BGI is also launching a survey (http://bit.ly/GamesED19Survey) of educators and studios on games recruitment and education. Educators are asked to share information on their courses, the biggest challenges they face and what they need from industry. Studios are asked to share information on hiring graduates, working with educational institutes and use of apprenticeships. The anonymised data from the survey will be used to highlight best practice and allow respondents to suggest areas for further improvements and collaboration.

Ian Livingstone CBE said “This unique conference takes a strategic view of games education today, informing games course leaders and games studios about where the opportunities and challenges lie. The Summit will focus the debate on how UK studios and educational establishments can work together more effectively.”

Rick Gibson, CEO of the BGI, said: “To address the challenges and opportunities in games education and the talent pipeline, we need all the players in the same room, sharing how they work, what worked, what failed, how to improve and collaborate.”

Dr. Jake Habgood, Course Leader for Games at Sheffield Hallam University, said: “It’s incredibly valuable for educators to have a forum to discuss the collective challenges we face in games education and learn from the best practice of friends and colleagues with a common goal.”

Philip Oliver, co-chair and co-organiser of the Summit, said: “The Industry needs additional talent, especially as attracting overseas talent becomes harder due to Brexit. So we need to embrace and support educators, to ensure that the next generation of developers are not only inspired, but that they are taught what is required by industry and are able to arrive ‘job ready.”

Looking back on 2018, the first year of our existence, it was a year of collaborations to support projects, run live events, colaborate on bids and deliver our programmes.

We enjoyed working with over 60 different organisations on projects large and small, as well as members of our hard-working Advisory Board.

Thank you to all our partners and we look forward to another year of collaborations with more amazing organisations and companies.

BGI partners in 2018

Abertay University, Ali Hossaini, Anim18, Arts Council England, Bath Spa University, Bolton and Quinn, British Academy, British Library, Climax Studios, Code Liberation, Confetti, Craig Fletcher, Creative England , Creative Europe. Creative Scotland, David Wise, deltaDNA, Downing, Draw and Code, Dream Reality Interactive, FutureLearn, Game Republic, IGDA Scotland, Imperial War Museum, Islamic Relief, Jessica Curry, Kings College London, LCI, Leeds Digital Festival, Levehulme Trust, Make Real, Mattereum, Meg Jayanth, Mercia Technologies, Mixed Reality Labs, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Nottingham City Council, Nottingham Libraries, Nottingham Theatre Royal and Concert Hall, Nottingham Trent University, Pilot Theatre, PlayIgnite, Playlines, Ritsumeikan University, Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, Royal Museums Greenwich, Scape Technologies, Serpentine Gallery, Sheffield Children’s Hospital, Sheffield City Council, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield Industrial Museums, Somerset House, UK Young Artists, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Futures Institute, University of Nottingham, University of Sheffield, Werkflow, Wiggin, William Galinsky, Women in Games, York Mediale and the Digital Creativity Labs at York University.