On the back of the second annual Scottish Games Week in November last year, a plan was put in motion to develop a framework to understand and support the Scottish games sector. 

In February of this year the National Games Strategy was announced. The strategy is led by the Scottish Games Network, which is now creating an action plan to provide tangible recommendations to increase support for the games sector in Scotland. 

“The gaming sector sits incredibly awkwardly, we’re neither one thing or the other,” said Brian Baglow, games industry veteran and founder of the Scottish Games Network. 

“We are of the tech world but not seen as tech. We are clearly part of the screen industries, but not in Scotland. And we are obviously part of the creative industries, but again, not a natural fit alongside things like architecture, literature and music.”

This, for an industry which adds a GVA of £188.5 million according to the Scottish Games Network. This number was a notable increase of £111m since a decade before, and during the same time the sector’s employment almost doubled.

Comparing this GVA to other key sectors in Scotland that have comprehensive growth plans in place like fintech, we can see the potential of the games sector.  

Fintech for example was at an estimated £598m according to FinTech Scotland, and the GVA for the Scottish space cluster is estimated at Just under £1 billion according to the Scottish National Investment Bank.

In a region where late-stage private funding is sparse, an Edinburgh-based video game company also raised one of the largest funding rounds across the UK in January, with a Series D round north of £86m.

UK-wide, the video game consumer market value is worth about £7.05bn, and employs over 47,000 people, with that number expected to grow to 60,000 by 2025. 

Globally, the games industry reached £146.3bn in revenue last year, and is expected to keep climbing this year with about 3.3 billion gamers worldwide.

Despite the productive outlook for the gaming industry, Scotland’s gaming hub lacked the coherent guidelines to make the most out of the history, talent pipeline, and appetite that already exists here. 

Out of ten gaming clusters in the UK, Scotland has slipped from fourth to fifth place recently. When looking at other clusters in Europe, Blaglow points out countries like Finland pulled in closer to £2bn.

“We could be doing better.”

Mapping the sector out

Despite massive success in the past with major global franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Minecraft, the state of video games in Scotland has since succumbed to the plight of both its past success and intersectionality. 

The touchstone for many when asked about the impact of Scotland on the games sector would be the big AAA titles like: Dundee game development firm 4J Studios’ involvement with bringing Minecraft to consoles, or Grand Theft Auto’s humble beginnings at DMA Design (now Rockstar North) in Dundee.

Besides these big wins in the late 90s and 2010s, the Scottish games industry, while very much alive and thriving in the interim, was fragmented and obscured by the big global outliers. 

This prompted Baglow to try to ‘map’ the games industry. “Believe it or not, we had no idea about the size or composition of the games sector,” he said. 

“No government department or public sector body has ever captured data about the games industry – let alone the ecosystem.”

After the preliminary findings, Baglow said he “discovered a far bigger, richer and more diverse sector than anybody has ever really given credit for to this day.”

According to Baglow, the sector seems to see itself as people involved in the design, development and production of games, “but when you look at the reality of the game’s ecosystem, it’s far far bigger than that.”

According to him, the games ecosystem intersects with a number of industries.”If you look at all the ways in which games are being used in manufacturing, construction, the creative industries,” Baglow says. 

“For example theatre companies and dance troops are using the Unreal Engine or Unity for set design, choreography, mixed reality performances or lighting options, it’s everywhere.”

According to him, there is also room for games in the energy sector, from learning development and safety skills training, to controlling submersibles

“We’ve got a role in so many different areas of the world. And as it stands right now, in Scotland, we are not included in a single one of those conversations.”

Going forward, the SGN will have a preliminary draft to share with the government in the coming weeks. 

“Once it’s been run past the partners, once everybody’s had a chance to sort of offer their commentary and input, we’ll be sharing it publicly,” he said, “because we want to make this as open and inclusive and transparent as we can.”

“It’s all about building that knowledge and understanding at a government level, both nationally and locally. And then using that to increase support for the games ecosystem as a whole.

Perhaps the most important piece to the puzzle of building out the Scottish games ecosystem is the new generation of developers on the scene. 

Dominik Gawron, a graduate out of Abertay University in Dundee sees gaming as more than just a means to an end, for him it is a passion project. 

On top of his full time job unrelated to the gaming industry, Gawron still devotes at least 1-2 hours per day on his game Deadlocked.

“It’s a baby of mine. I’ve been developing for a very long time, it’s gonna be three years soon,” he said. 

What drives this passion for those in the ecosystem in Scotland is its community and history. 

“We’ve got that heritage, we’ve got that legacy. But there’s a general willingness to explore an experiment,” said Baglow. 

“One of the reasons why I stay in Scotland is because of the connections I’ve made in the gaming industry,” says Gawron, who is a Londoner.

This transcends even just the games sector. Ben Lowing, CEO and co-founder of Mercuna, a game AI navigation middleware company based in Scotland shared how by being based out of CodeBase, he was able to tap into a support network made up of individuals from a swath of different sectors. 

“It’s just a really nice environment to be with other tech startups that have faced similar challenges,” he said. 

“There’s things like Codebase slack and if you have a bigger problem you can message on that and you’ll find people with similar experiences.”

This encapsulates exactly what it is the National Games Strategy is trying to achieve on a broader level within the gaming sphere. 

“We can convene and pull together stakeholders in a way which very few other countries can,” continued Baglow

“I think there’s a real opportunity to make Scotland the most connected and collaborative and knowledgeable games market in the world.”