November 18, 2019

Ukie’s manifesto sets out how the next Government can support the country’s thriving video games and interactive entertainment industry. It includes key policy recommendations for Government to help achieve the industry’s ambition to turn the UK into the best place to make, sell and play games in the world.

The proposals are:

• providing public funding for cultural video games from sources such as the Arts Council and National Lottery, bringing the funding of games in line with other creative industries;
• assist the sector’s efforts to scale up regional interactive entertainment clusters,creating extra jobs and driving economic growth across the whole country;
• promote the UK’s regional video game industry success story further by funding new, or existing, local game festivalsakin to the London Games Festival;
• extend the UK Games Fundfor prototyping video games and establish additional funding for mid stage projects to help turn promising concepts into sustainable businesses;
• encourage the use of games as a classroom toolacross all subjects and change Ofsted inspection criteria to prioritise creativity;
• aspire to turn every school in the country into a Digital Schoolhouse to bring its inspiring play-based approach to teaching Computing to every child;
• grow the esports sector by providing public funding for grassroots organisations, ensuring leading international esports talent can enter the UK and to create the infrastructure to help UK esports businesses reach a growing global audience;
• advocate, in partnership with industry, the use ofgames as a key digital literacy tool for people of all ages to safely navigate the online world;
• support from Government for our efforts toimprove diversity in the sector, following the results of Ukie’s diversity census (due for publication in early 2020); and
• Government, academia and industry to work together tosupport robust research into the way players engage with games.

To read Ukie’s announcement in full and to access the manifesto, click here.