Powerful, data-driven evidence of the success of the UK Games Fund (UKGF) has been published in the first UK Games Fund Report, demonstrating its significant positive impact on job creation, private investment, and the overall growth of the UK’s independent games sector.
The findings serve as crucial proof of concept for the importance of dedicated, early-stage funding and strongly underscore the case for strategic initiatives, such as the forthcoming Scottish Games Action Plan.
The comprehensive report, which analyses the fund’s performance over its most-recent three-year period, paints a clear picture of a highly effective intervention that generates a substantial return for the UK economy.
The Key Findings: A Major Return on Investment
The data from the evaluation is very clear. The UKGF has been a major catalyst for growth, de-risking the challenging early stages of development for new companies and intellectual property.
Key statistics from the report include:
- Economic Impact: The fund is projected to generate between £30 million and £58 million in productivity benefits Gross Value Added (GVA) for the UK economy. This represents a significant benefit-to-cost ratio of up to 7.3.
- Job Creation: The fund’s support is estimated to have directly contributed to the creation of around 430 new full-time jobs in the high-productivity video games sector.
- Leveraging Private Investment: The report found that UKGF-funded companies secured an additional £18.2 million in private funding, a figure that surpasses the total public investment (and is noted in the report as likely underestimated).
- Enabling Development: A massive 74% of surveyed studios stated their game prototype would not have been completed without the UKGF’s support. Furthermore, 85% said the funding increased the speed of their development, and 78% agreed it increased the quality of their prototype.
- Commercial Success: The report estimates that the fund’s support directly led to the commercialisation of an additional 115 games.
The full report is available on the DCMS website. It’s a large and comprehensive document, but if you’re interested in how games are supported in the UK, it’s absolutely worth your while. It’s also incredibly useful in terms of how Scotland can build upon the proven success of the UKGF.
Speaking of which…
A Model For Scotland: The Importance Of The Games Action Plan
This report is more than just a collection of positive statistics; it is evidence that is directly relevant to the future of the games industry in Scotland. As the Scottish Games Network continues to develop a national Games Action Plan, this evaluation provides a powerful, government-backed case study for why targeted, strategic funding is an incredibly effective way to stimulate growth at the grassroots level.
The UKGF’s success in de-risking innovation, creating high-value jobs, and generating a significant economic return demonstrates exactly the kind of targeted support that the Games Action Plan will advocate for within Scotland. It proves that relatively modest public investment in early-stage development can unlock enormous private sector funding and lead to the creation of valuable new intellectual property.
For Scotland to build upon its incredible heritage and achieve its ambition of becoming a genuine games ‘supercluster’, it must have its own mechanisms to support the next generation of studios. This report provides the hard data and the clear economic argument needed to make that case to the Scottish Government and its enterprise agencies. It shows that supporting our most creative and ambitious new companies is not a cost, but a high-return investment in our economic future.
The Scottish Games Network will be using the findings of the UK Games Fund Report as a key piece of evidence in our ongoing work on the Games Action Plan, demonstrating a proven model for success that Scotland can and should build upon.
(And more on that in the next week. Promise…)
B