Recently I was excited by many of the companies I met at Software City when I sat on a Dragons' Den panel, but none more so than by the games companies based in and around Liverpool. Yesterday I went to see three companies at the cutting edge. I was wearing my pin striped suit but in deference to the more relaxed dress code of the creative sector, I did remove my tie!
There is such a hub of talent in the area, more than 4000 artists and technologists, that the big boys have been attracted and Sony, Warner Bros, THQ and Activision all have a major presence in the area. Sony employs over 600 people and any developer based in Europe wanting to publish a game on any of Sony’s platforms must go via the Liverpool HQ. But of course this concentration of creative talent spawns a multitude of smaller companies, and Moonsurf Studios, Milky Tea and Playbox whom I went to see are exceptional companies with exceptional people.
I’m trying to develop a game that will help inexperienced exporters to understand the issues they will face, what they should do about them and what help is available and, while this could be very dry indeed, Harold MacMillan was right when he said that “exporting is fun” so I want the game to reflect this and demonstrate that exporting is not just good for your productivity and competitiveness but enjoyable too.
I was massively impressed with the ideas that were presented to me and I am confident we’ll develop something interesting and educational as a result. Games are worth over £400m to the regional economy and that’s growing. A lot of their output is exported and I now have a real insight into how the Creative and Digital industries will have a key role in driving forward future economic growth for us all.