Games industry gets £4m development fund from UK Government

The Video Games Prototype Fund will provide grants of up to £25,000 to support various gaming projects in the early stage of their development. Like its predecessor, the new fund offers businesses grants of up to £25,000 each in order to turn their ideas for new games into working prototypes which can then be used to woo private investment – or, as is increasingly the case, to launch a crowd-funding campaign via Kickstarter or similar.

It will be managed by the UK Games Talent and Finance Community Interest Company, with input from bodies such as Digital Catapult, Bafta, Ukie, Tiga, Creative England, Creative Scotland and the British Film Institute.

Based in Dundee and London, the fund will run until 2019, and forms part of a package of measures the United Kingdom government has already introduced for the gaming industry, including a package of tax reliefs.

The government said it wants to ensure that the United Kingdom continues to create games like “Runescape”, “Monument Valley”, and “Candy Crush”. It also identified 12 gaming hubs, these including cities such as Brighton, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London and Manchester.

According to the DCMS, the UK’s video games industry now generates more than £4.5 million a day for the United Kingdom economy and directly employs more than 19,000 people.

“The United Kingdom has a long history of developing world-class video games”, added Ian Livingstone, video games entrepreneur, fantasy author and co-founder of Games Workshop.

The official missives announcing the fund mention lots of developed-in-Britain games like Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto, which apparently made ” significant cultural and economic global impact”.

“Access to finance has been an on-going challenge for small and micro games businesses, and the financial support of the fund, as well as the mentoring opportunities that are provided, will open doors to a huge amount of unearthed games talent in the United Kingdom”.

“This fund will encourage and incentivise new talent to carry on that important legacy”.