In a press release made by the UK government on June 13th, 2023, they announced a new set of plans to grow their economy through their creative industries by 50 billion pounds. This plan includes an uplift towards the UK Games Fund of 5 million pounds, which will increase its total funding to over 13 million pounds over the next two years. These funds are going to help domestic game developers create more games and proper support for the industry.
In the press release, the goal of these new plans is to increase the potential for creative industries in the UK and grow their economy. In fact, the creative industries are a global British success story, growing over 1.5 times the rate of the wider economy over the last decade and contributing over 100 billion pounds in GVA annually.
As far as what the UK government hopes to achieve with the video game portion of these funds, the press release had this to say:
The UK Games Fund will receive a £5 million uplift bringing its total funding to £13.4 million over the next two years. Since 2015 the fund has been developing talent and awarding grants to young video game developers and early-stage studios to turn their drawing board ideas into working prototype games and showcase them to investors. The additional funding will mean it can help maturer start-ups grow their businesses and attract even more private investment into our booming video games industry.
The UK Games Fund has supported multiple studios and titles since 2015 according to gameworldobserver, including Cardboard Sword’s The Siege And The Sandfox, Fallen Tree’s American Fugitive, Fireblade Software’s Abandon Ship, Kaizen Game Works’ Paradise Killer and SquarePlay’s Space Trash Scavenger. With the UK Games Fund almost doubling after this increase in funds, it seems as though many more games will have the opportunity to be created and enjoyed, at the very least, over the next two years.