Dundee games initiative receives funding boost

UK GAMES FUND: An extra £500,000 to support firms next year as part of the Creative Industries Sector Deal

Dundee-based UK Games Fund received a funding boost as part of the Creative Industries Sector Deal, announced by the UK Government yesterday.

The group, which helps support the UK’s games business and talent ecosystem, was awarded £1 million in November’s budget, which will allow the initiative to continue until 2020.

Yesterday brought more good news with the River Court programme receiving a further £500,000 to extend its schemes to support young businesses in 2018-19.

The Government and Creative Industries Council are to invest more than £150m into the UK’s creative industries – including film, TV, music, fashion and design, arts, architecture, publishing, advertising and video games.

Dundee’s strength in games development was highlighted in the strategy document.

It described the city as “one of the UK’s most significant video games development clusters, with more than 40 established games firms and 350 employees”.

Paul Durrant, who heads the UK Games Fund, said: “Our projects serve young games studios the length and breadth of the UK.

“We’re leading the way with our community-based approach which has our funded companies giving back their time to support other fledgling games businesses and that’s highlighted in the report.

“Of course, we are delighted to see the additional £1m of funding, announced in the budget, now locked in to the sector deal.

“In addition, the sector deal also announces a further £500,000 to boost our Tranzfuser graduate development programme.”

The UK Games Fund launched in 2015 to help SMEs from across the UK address early-stage finance issues, boost new IP and nurture talent.

To date it has helped more than 75 games firms and supported more than 170 graduates on the journey to becoming entrepreneurs.

Its Tranzfuser talent programme has become a best-practice model for supporting the development of early-stage creative teams of graduates from universities throughout the UK.

Mr Durrant added: “Having the certainty of being able to run it for the next two years will help us develop some of the other support tools.

“For example, our blockchain-based share registry for creative teams which has been used by Tranzfuser for the past two years is now seen as a pioneering development for the sector.”

Top: Laser League, produced by Roll7, who were supported by the UK Games Fund. Above left: Paul Durrant, founder and chief executive of UK Games Fund. Above right: a visitor at the Tranzfuser stand at the EGX games show.