Levelling up! The future of the UK games market: Unlocking the potential for collaboration between games and other media

Over the past few years, video games have moved steadily into the mainstream of UK media and entertainment. Last year, UK consumers spent £4.2bn on games, up 7.4% from 2014, with around 70% of Britons aged 8-74 playing digital games. The ways in which games interact with other media also continues to grow, excite and inspire – extending franchises and creating new ones, spawning new industries and offering fresh opportunities for advertisers. Devices increasingly enable seamless transition between different media and, with the emergence of widely applicable technologies like VR, will further grow the potential for innovative mixed-media formats.

However, many believe that the UK games industry faces several key challenges if it is to capitalise on the rapid growth of the market. Similarly, unlocking the potential for collaboration between games and other media remains commercially and practically complex: competition is intense, and deciding how best to distribute and monetise a game can be a puzzle for the most experienced games companies, let alone traditional media enterprises; business models are diverse and often unique to games, so creating deals and working structures that benefit all stakeholders and foster quality can be a struggle.

How will the UK games market develop during the next 3-5 years? How fast will it grow and is the UK well-positioned to thrive? What kinds of games are succeeding with UK audiences and why? How will the position of the UK games industry evolve in relation to other media, and how can different sectors work together to grow the overall entertainment market? What can we learn from the best examples of cross-industry collaboration?

MTM would like to invite you to a special forum event exploring the opportunities for major media enterprises to collaborate with the games industry.

We are delighted to announce that the panel for the forum will include:

Jo Twist, CEO of UKIE;

Nick Button-Brown, Chair of the BAFTA Games Committee and Head of Games at Improbable;

Dave Ranyard, CEO of Dream Reality Interactive and former Director at Sony Interactive’s London Studio;

Jody Smith, Head of Digital at Youngest Media and former multiplatform commissioning editor at Channel 4;

Spencer Crossley, Sales & Marketing Director, UK and EIRE at Warner Bros Interactive

ISPA Members can request a free ticket to the event, please email: rsvp@mtmlondon.com, quoting ISPA in the subject line. Places are invite-only and limited to 80 senior industry participants, managed to ensure a balanced discussion. Please The panel discussion starts promptly at 6pm, running to 7.30pm, followed by drinks and networking at the bar.