The UK games industry and the wider creative industry has received a £20 million windfall from the Government. The fund has been shared out among the different bodies involved in order to better equip them to reach a selection of targets. Though, in comparison to other sectors, the games industry has received a far smaller fund. It comes after what proved to be a very successful 2017 for the entire creative industry in the UK.
The £20 million cash injection for the creatives industry comes after the news that the entire sector managed to provide a little over £100 billion into the UK economy in 2017, with the games industry making up more than £1 billion of that figure for the first time. The new fund was announced by Margo James, the Creative Industries Minister, and will be used across programmes for film, television, music, games, and more.
Though, the fund hasn’t been shared out among the different practices equally. Long-term projects like the Creative Careers Programme received the highest portion of the funds. With £14 million going to help reach the programme’s target of getting 160,000 more students involved in creative career paths by 2020. The programme sends out influential figures from different sector to meet with students at schools and colleges across the UK to speak about how they can progress in the industry.
In contrast to those figures, two bodies in the UK games industry received a combined fund of £390,000. The UK Games Fund, which helps developers and studios in maximizing the funding they receive, has been awarded £190,000. While the Digital Schoolhouse that’s run by UKIE and Sony has been awarded a further £200,000. Digital Schoolhouse works to help schools teach students about the latest developments in technology. UKIE’s CEO, Dr. Jo Twist, said that the fund would help them “equip the next generation with creative computing literacy and valuable transferable skills to become part of the digital creative workforce of the future.” The money means that the project can now be spread across 50 schools in the UK.
(Via gamesindustry.biz)
