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Support for a new British Games Institute has expanded rapidly since its announcement last week with over 350 games developers, publishers and other industry businesses having now signed up to support the scheme.
The proposal from industry legend Ian Livingstone CBE and Rick Gibson calls for a new government funded agency to help support the video games industry as a seperate entity from other media, like film, which will help benefit the UK ecomony.
According to their website, britishgamesinstitute.com, the idea has a list of backers including: "over 300 CEOs, Directors and influential industry figures from some of the UK’s best known games companies, investors and educational establishment[s]".
The full list is published on their site but includes many figures from both large developers and publishers as well as the indepenedent development, along with the UK’s trade bodies UKIE and TIGA who’s support was published with the initiative’s announcement last week.
Some of the people on the list include Debbie Bestwick MBE from Team 17, Jason Kingsley OBE from Rebellion, David Braben OBE from Frontier Developments and Miles Jacobson OBE from Sports Interactive, to name but a few.
It also includes studios such as Sony Interactive Entertainment, Eidos, Creative Assembly, Simo Digital, Supermassive Games, Jagex, and TT Games. Charity Gamesaid has also pleged their support as well as video game merchandise company Insert Coin, Games Press Ltd and five UK universities.
The BGI hopes to gain funding from government to help support the games industry, prevent closures of studios, invest in education and "champion games’ cultral impact on British life." This comes as a response to Theresa May’s speech last week which included the creative industries as one of the UK’s pillars of industry.
On the announcement of this industry plan from the Prime Minister, and the opportunity for this agency to be created, the BGI also said "the timing is perfect for the industry to use a single voice to propose a simple, focused and powerful plan to Government for a new agency that will have deep and long term impact."
