The UK's games hub gets a boost in the face of global competition
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How much does Government support for a country’s games industry matter?
Türkiye has been hitting the headlines for some particularly generous incentives of late. In 2023, Games from Turkiye advisory board head Tugbek Olek took to the stage at Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco to claim game studios don’t pay tax. Though exactly how generous this is was disputed by one source.
More recently, the country’s Government has expanded funding support for user acquisition and marketing. Meanwhile, it’s willing to offset platform commissions by Apple and Google, and developers are even getting support for their use of data and cloud services.
Global support schemes
These are impeccably well targeted schemes that suggest either impressive knowledge of the games business in the upper echelons of power in Türkiye, or at least a willingness to listen and take serious the opportunities in a sector that has spawned highly successful companies like Peak, Dream Games, Rollic and more recently Loom Games, amongst others.
These incentives don’t go unnoticed on the international stage as countries compete to bring in the world’s top talent and studios. Just look at the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are investing significant sums into growing their respective hubs. The Mobile Mavens recently discussed international competition here. Today, we published their debate around Government support.
The UK is waking up to international competition, though it comes from a position of a well-established industry.
During the London Games Festival last week it was announced that the UK Games Fund will offer a £28.5 million pot to help game studios grow, with up to £250k available. This is part of the Games Growth Package that was actually already revealed earlier this year. LGF is also getting £1.5m over the next three years.
Fight for recognition
The UK’s games industry has spent decades battling for Government recognition, despite being home to world famous franchises and studios, not least Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar. It finally got tax breaks in 2014 after years of campaigning from trade bodies TIGA and UKIE - but not soon enough before Canada and its generous tax relief across provinces were helping their local studios snap up talent. There’s a reason French developer Ubisoft has a substantial portion of its operations in the country.
The UK only recently got SIC codes for games publishing and development, so games businesses no longer sit within broad software and IT categories. This classification means the UK can actually accurately assess the size, growth and returns of the industry.
As I wrote in February, to realise how far behind the UK industry is - the emerging Brazil games sector fought for a long time to get a legal framework to recognise the industry to give it specific code with the National Register of Economic Activities. It was signed into law in 2024, for a much younger industry. Meanwhile, the UK’s games sector has been releasing hits and building global franchises for decades and got this recognition later.
It’s no wonder Miniclip CEO and UK Video Games Council member Saad Choudri said during a PGC London panel that if he was starting a 100-person studio in games today, he wouldn’t do that in the UK.
Why Government backing matters
There’s certainly a debate as to how much money and support an established industry should get from the Government. It’s one Finland has been facing as a new Government cut funding for its own games sector in recent years. Though perhaps recent figures from TIGA showing job losses - the UK games industry’s first workforce reduction in 14 years - and a collapse in startup activity offer a signal that the sector is in need of a boost, something its CEO Richard Wilson is clamouring for.
Under the current Government, the UK’s games industry seems to be getting a better look - even the Minister of State for Trade Policy Chris Bryant was at PGC London to at least show his face.
The UK games industry won’t fail suddenly if the Government turns a blind eye to new support initiatives. There will still be successful startups from entrepreneurs. It’s survived long enough without much assistance.
But there has long been a clamour to get more support for a hub that creates jobs and cultural exports, recognising it doesn’t operate in a vacuum, but very much has heated international competition vying to become games business leaders.
Learn about the top global games industry hubs at one of our many worldwide Pocket Gamer Connects conferences. Meet with local experts during our upcoming events like PGC Summit Malmö on May 27th to 28th and PGC Barcelona on June 15th to 16th. Newsletter readers can get a 10% discount on tickets - subscribe here.