MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Hello America.
At this time of year our minds (and bodies) go transatlantic for E3, so we thought we’d showcase just a few of the brilliant British businesses that you Americans could be working with from our side of the pond.
We have a huge variety of firms here that are all looking for US partners, clients or deals. From media production companies to publishers, merchandisers to PR firms, sales outfits and server providers, plus a lot more.
Headlines about the UK have been dominated by Brexit for months now, and while the situation does create some uncertainty, the UK games industry posted record figures last year, with a total consumer spend of 4.33bn. That’s a market that anyone would be mad not to exploit, and you can maximise your revenues by working with local partners that know the country well.
The UK is also a leader in exporting creative talent, and with the pound looking a little worse-for-wear right now, that expertise is more affordable than ever before.
So take a scroll through our brochure of talent and find the right partner for your business. We can vouch for each and every one of them, but we’ve let them describe themselves in their own words.
- Attention Seekers
- Bastion
- Bits + Pixels
- Curve Digital
- Funbox Media
- Games Merchandise UK
- Green Man Gaming
- Indigo Pearl
- Little Big PR
- Multiplay
- Renaissance PR
- Sold Out Sales & Marketing
- System 3
- Team17 Digital
- The Yogscast
ATTENTION SEEKERS
"Attention Seekers is both production company and creative agency, covering live moments, eSports and video production"
Location:London & Santa Monica
Headcount: 25
Key contact(pictured below):Jason Wiltshire, director, on +44 203 096 0366, jason@attentionseekers.tv
Website:UK: www.attentionseekers.tv, USA: www.adandd.tv
Attention Seekers delivers live entertainment moments for video games. From live eSports, VOD content, staging press conferences, game launches or fan events, we produce killer entertainment and pioneer new formats for the games industry.
Arguably, we have the very best live production team with the formation of the AD+D office in Santa Monica, which has seen us partner with Done+Dusted to revolutionise live moments for the games industry.
Combined with our recent exciting global production partnership with BT, this provides significant global
capacity to develop, facilitate and distribute content for
the gaming industry.
Our passion is games and we love to work with studios, publishers and platforms, either through our creative thinking or bringing a brief to life with dynamic productions. Either way, working with Attention Seekers will ensure the very best production standards and the promise to reach the biggest audience possible, wherever and whatever they watch on.
BASTION
"For over twenty years, full-service communications agency Bastion has been helping publishers and developers grow and thrive"
Key contact(pictured below):Dean Barrett, managing director, on +44 203 841 7660 or dean@bastion.co.uk
Location:London
Headcount:7
Website:www.bastion.co.uk
Since 1992, Bastion has been helping some of the brightest and best talent in the games industry to achieve their commercial goals. We work with major publishers, independent developers and everyone in between. As a mixture of journalists and seasoned agency professionals, we know how to tell your story and get you noticed.
From multi-territory PR campaigns through our OneVoice network to social media and content creation, we take the pressure off you, enabling you to focus on your business.
We’ve specialised for a number of years in unlocking the vast potential of the European marketplace for American companies, helping to overcome language and regulatory obstacles. Our reporting is transparent, providing you with a total 360-degree view of activity and results in every territory.
Let us help make your name in Europe and unlock your real potential in this $14bn market.
We get games seen in the real world – this is coverage from a single announcement, picked up by the FT, BBC, Sky, The Guardian, and The Huffington Post among others.
BITS + PIXELS
"A boutique licensing agency that specialises in the video game industry, dedicated to delivering intelligent creative collaborations"
Location:London
Headcount:2
Key contact (pictured below):Sandra Arcan, co-director, on +44 7889 196113 or sandra@bitsandpixels.agency
Website:www.bitsandpixels.agency
Bits + Pixels Agency is Sandra Arcan and Su-Yina Farmer, gaming enthusiasts with a combined 30+ years
multi-disciplinary experience in the field. We understand the gaming industry, its hugely passionate fanbase and how they connect with their favourite brands. Simply put, we want to make cool things for great games and great fans.
With highly resonating licensing programmes and stand-out brand collaborations, we take brands to new places reaching untapped audiences. Our trend-savvy and creative approach to licensing means we are always looking to keep even the most established brands fresh and exciting, as well as help build the gaming brands of the future.
We pride ourselves in complete product and community immersion, ensuring our projects stay true to the brand’s identity and core values. Our roster includes Blizzard Entertainment, Capcom and Ultra Ultra. We are looking to connect with gaming publishers and licensees who share our vision and ambition.
CURVE DIGITAL
"A growing digital publisher looking to widen distribution, seeking promo content partners and unveiling new titles"
Location:London
Headcount:18
Keycontact (pictured below):Stuart Dinsey, chairman, on +44 207 566 0095 or stuart.dinsey@curve-digital.com
Website:www.curve-digital.com
Curve Digital is a leading publisher on PC and console. We offer funding, internal production, PR and marketing support – all designed to help devs do what they do best, while we handle route to market.
Partners can choose how much of our services they want to use, and we’ll create a bespoke agreement accordingly. From taking established PC hits onto console (like Thomas Was Alone, Dear Esther and The Flame in the Flood) or original releases such as Human: Fall Flat, Manual Samuel and Hue, we’re passionate about every game we launch.
Each release benefits from our expertise for years to come, as we work with a variety of partners to ensure we maximise exposure. Whether your pitch is just a concept on the back of a cigarette packet or you’re fully finished and ready to ship, we can work with you to make sure your game is a success.
FUNBOX MEDIA
"If you have a game and want to get it to market then Funbox Media should be your only choice – we may be small but we make a big splash"
Location:Chesterfield
Headcount:6
Key contact (pictured below):Barry Hatch, MD, on +44 1246 824 782 or barryhatch@funboxmedia.co.uk
Website:www.funboxmedia.co.uk
Now in our seventh year and with a combined 60 years of industry experience covering publishing, distribution and retail, we have the global network, relationships and inroads to get your product noticed and selling.
Over the years we have worked with major licensed brands on all platforms. We have also worked closely with developers and publishers to get their products into territories they previously did not have access to.
Our greatest recent successes have been bringing to market the game version of the very successful The Cube TV series. We also brought Myst to the market for 3DS and have worked closely with Games Workshop on bringing some of their strongest brands to market like Space Hulk.
We can provide a complete concept to box solution. We’re interested in working with new indie developers who have great original ideas and who want to partner with a company that wants to grow with them in the long term.
GAMING MERCHANDISE UK
"We are the UK’s only dedicated specialist distributor in official gaming-related merchandise, with services for retail, brands and licensees"
Location:London
Headcount:6
Key contact (pictured below):Luiz Ferreira, founder and director, on hello@gamingmerchandiseuk.com
Website:www.gamingmerchandiseuk.com
Established in 2013 to bring cool gaming merchandise to the masses via distribution, retail and consumer events, we work with some of Europe’s leading designers and manufacturers of officially licensed merchandise from clothing to accessories, collectables to strategy guides.
We have built a strong reputation for delivering exciting ranges around software launches for our retail partners, as well as building up tangible data of what consumers want from merchandise at some of Europe’s biggest consumer events.
We have worked with some of the biggest games publishers on triple-A product launches and have successfully launched and category-managed dedicated merchandise spaces in leading UK outlets. On the consumer event side of the business, we have represented dozens of brands at over 80 events.
We have access to some of the most exciting gaming-related merchandise in the UK and Europe, most of which would be perfect for the US market. We are interested in working with US distributors and retailers who might be interested in our ranges, and we can also offer various solutions for brands and ranges looking to launch product into the UK and European markets.
GREEN MAN GAMING
"Green Man Gaming is an e-commerce technology company offering a storefront, a community, content and publishing"
Location:London
Headcount: 78
Key contact (pictured below):Lesley McDiarmid, SVP head of partnerships, on lesley.mcdiarmid@greenmangaming.com
Website:www.greenmangaming.com
Green Man Gaming is a successful e-commerce technology business that combines commerce, community, content and games publishing. Set up in 2009, the award-winning business has become the No.2 official PC digital games retailer in the world. It is an official distributor of PS4, Nintendo, Steam, Uplay and many more PC platform products with a huge catalogue of over 8,000 games that is continually expanding.
With millions of passionate gamers visiting the storefront everyday from over 195 countries and a highly engaged and loyal community, Green Man Gaming offers partners a chance to work together to reach a targeted audience of gamers through content, promotions and marketing campaigns.
Its community platform and content sites, including the blog and franchise hubs, provide gamers with the latest insights, information and updates all in one place. It currently partners with technology and video game giants such as Intel, Lenovo and Square Enix.
INDIGO PEARL
"The UK’s biggest independent PR agency specialising in games"
Location:London
Headcount:10
Key contact (pictured below):Caroline Miller, founder and CEO, on +44 (0)208 964 4545 or caroline@indigopearl.com
Website:www.indigopearl.com
Indigo Pearl is the biggest independent UK PR agency specialising in games and three-time winners of the MCV Award for best agency. We have an excellent reputation stretching back over 20 years and have launched some of the biggest and smallest games in the world – and we can plug you into Europe through our excellent network of agency partners.
In addition to the PR side of the agency, we own PXN, which builds and maintains global press websites for some of the biggest publishers in the world including PlayStation, Warner Bros, Ubisoft and Amazon. And when we tasked our developers to make a key delivery solution, they built DXN which can deliver PlayStation, Xbox or PC codes and has been used to distribute Little Nightmares, Injustice 2 and Uncharted 4 to over 55 territories.
We pride ourselves on our motto to ‘be nice and work hard,’ so if you like the sound of that, then get in touch.
LITTLE BIG PR
"An agency for those that don’t do agencies"
Location:London
Headcount:2
Turnover:4.1m
Key contact (pictured below):
Gareth Williams, COO, on +44 7532 774 750 or gareth@littlebigpr.com
Alex Verrey, CEO, on +44 7957 204 660 or alex@littlebigpr.com
Website:www.littlebigpr.com
Too often, you’ll be pitched by the directors and end up working with the publicists. Little Big is here to disrupt the status quo. At Little Big PR, you have two directors whose sole focus is on delivering publicity for its clients without pushing work onto junior staff. Our gravitas among senior press is unrivalled and our ability to place coverage among target outlets is second to none in the UK.
But we don’t stop at the UK. We’re a portal to Europe for your games, as our international partners help us spread your message and reach your aims the world over, with dedicated support across the USA, EMEA and APAC. We’ve done this job for some people you might know, including the likes of Mad Catz, Lucid Sound, Square Enix, 2K Games, Crytek, Gearbox, Warner Bros. and more.
We don’t just write press releases and send out assets, we do so much more. From creating compelling campaign narratives, to planning and executing focused brand strategies – whether you’re a one man outfit or a 300+ operation, we’re here as the addition to help market your products to press, influencers and consumers.
MULTIPLAY
"Game server hosts for large-scale multiplayer titles, offering a single API gateway to a hybrid solution of bare metal affordability and cloud flexibility"
Location:Southampton
Headcount:40
Key contact (pictured below):Paul Manuel, director of digital, or Matthew Morris, head of sales, on+44 345 868 1337 or bizdev@multiplay.com
Website:www.multiplay.com
We provide developers and publishers with access to our global network of bare metal servers, seamlessly blended with the biggest cloud providers such as AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.
Our unique hybrid approach enables developers and publishers to benefit from both the affordability of bare metal and the flexibility of cloud.
Our orchestration platform does the hard work, taking care of auto scaling on demand and bursting into multiple clouds when required. All this is accessed via a simple API.
To date, we have worked with the likes of Respawn Entertainment to successfully launch their triple-A title Titanfall 2, Tripwire Interactive’s hotly-anticipated FPS Killing Floor 2 and, most recently, Ready At Dawn’s multiplayer brawler, Deformers. All launches were seamlessly executed, scaling throughout the launch phase and subsequent peaks and DLC releases. Our unique offering is delivered by our dedicated team of gaming experts and 24/7 live ops support.
RENAISSANCE PR
"Putting media in the best possible condition to cover your product through simple, integrated, measurable and non-formulaic campaigns"
Location:Surrey
Headcount:2
Key contact (pictured below):Stefano Petrullo, founder, on +44 7828 692 315 or stefano@renaissancepr.biz
Website:www.renaissancepr.co.uk
Renaissance PR was founded by industry veteran and ex-journalist Stefano Petrullo back in May 2015. In just over two years, Renaissance has been able to prove the value and importance of a modern approach to public relations, attracting both UK and international clients from different backgrounds, using a 360 degree approach to media.
The passionate, honest approach to both media and clients has secured incredible results, often beating the agreed KPIs. Currently representing AESVI, Daedalic, Edge Case Games, Milestone, Square Enix Collective and Team17, we offer everything from tailored PR campaigns to global product and corporate PR strategy.
Recent successes include Team17’s global PR launch of Yooka-Laylee and the acclaimed BAFTA winner Overcooked, the UK campaign for free-to-play MOBA Fractured Space from Edge Case Games, as well as The Turing Test from Square Enix Collective.
SOLD OUT SALES AND MARKETING
"Sold Out helps you become the publisher you’ve always wanted to be – and we’ll help you sell your games worldwide"
Location:London
Headcount:12
Key contact (pictured below):Josh Garrity, digital content manager, on +44 203 405 4198 or josh.garrity@soldout.uk.com
Website:www.soldout.uk.com
Sold Out works with co-publishing partners, enabling developers to achieve incredible success internationally. We’re a company that delivers results. Whether it’s a driven sales team, retail distribution, the best marketing and PR, or a partner to guide you through the entire process.
Our partners are the star of the show, delivering titles like Yooka-Laylee, Sniper Elite 4, Overcooked, Worms, Zombie Army Trilogy, Planet Coaster, Elite Dangerous and Prison Architect. What we do is help great games achieve their full sales potential with bespoke services that lighten the publishing load, allowing developers to spend more time making outstanding games.
We’re already working with the best that Europe has to offer, linking up with our partners internationally to deliver product both digitally and at retail. Sold Out is looking to bring success to even more developers, and the US is a country full to the brim with exciting products and brilliant studios. We’d love to see what you’re working on and demonstrate how Sold Out can add value to your game and to your company’s bottom line.
SYSTEM 3
"The UK’s longest serving, award-winning developer and publisher, working with talent the world over to create classic games"
Location:London
Headcount:17
Key contact (pictured below):Mark Cale, CEO, on markcale@system3.com
Website:www.system3.com
System 3 has been in existence since 1982 as Europe’s longest serving publisher and developer, delivering multi-million selling products that have created, shaped and defined genres, from International Karate, The Last Ninja and Myth through to Pinball Arcade, Ferrari Challenge, Putty and Constructor.
We’re never afraid and always excited to create products that are built with passion, whether it’s a combat, racing, platformer or RTS title.
We partner with some of the world’s most respected developers to help them realise their vision, handling distribution, sales, marketing and PR for all major territories, achieving No.1 status not just in western markets, but also topping the charts on PSN in Japan.
We’d love to find new products and help nurture them to market, and we’re able to assist not just product, but companies in achieving their ambitions. Whatever your platform of choice, we have the contacts to ensure consumers see your product, and the skillset to sell it.
TEAM17 DIGITAL
"Leading international games label Team17 is looking for passionate developers to help realise their game’s full potential"
Location:Wakefield (development studio), Nottingham (commercial office)
Headcount:100
Key contact (pictured below):Harley Homewood, senior business development manager, on harley.homewood@team17.com or Skype: harley.homewood1
Website:www.team17.com
Founded in 1990, Team17 is a leading international developer and games label that hosts the Worms franchise, Yooka-Laylee, The Escapists, Overcooked and more.
Having worked with developers around the world, we have released 14 games on this label and recently announced the twentieth, signing with quirky pinball platformer Yoku’s Island Express. Team17 is also working on The Escapists 2, the follow-up to the award-winning prison escape game which recently celebrated over 4m downloads.
Team17 is looking to work with passionate developers to help them realise their game’s full potential with a unique, flexible offering of services. Aside from traditional commercial support, what makes Team17 stand out is our ability to utilise our own internal development resources such as QA, code, art, design, audio or our unique incubation programme, which allows devs to work out of Team17’s studio with a dedicated team supporting them.
THE YOGSCAST
"UK’s original YouTubers continue to grow, now with live streaming, full production capability and a shiny, new purpose-built studio"
Location:Bristol
Headcount:25+
Key contact (pictured below):Rich Keith on rich@yogscast.com
Website:www.yogscast.com
The Yogscast have been at the forefront of digital video innovation for eight years, growing from two guys chatting while playing games to 30 channels with over 23m subscribers and 100m views a month.
No one knows more about how YouTube and Twitch work than we do, and we’ve led the way in creative ways to partner with influencers, from big budget live action spectaculars to working with indie devs.
We have also helped a range of third parties create their own content and currently produce and manage Xbox UK’s fast-growing YouTube channel, XboxOn, which is boasting 300 per cent year-on-year growth.
With an expanding list of content creators, plus a new purpose-built studio coming online this month that will massively increase our live streaming and video production capabilities, this is a great time to talk to us about how to reach new audiences that mainstream advertising won’t get to.
