1010 Games head of publishing says UK has become hostile to new game studios

Funko Fusion developer 1010 Games was brought to life in 2021 by a number of TT Games veterans, who'd all worked on various LEGO games at the Warner Bros.-owned studio. They were experienced with the family-friendly 3D action genre, and wanted to make an "older" version with Funko pops taking over for the beloved branded bricks.

What they found, head of publishing Arthur Parsons explained to Game Developer at Gamescom 2024, was that starting up a brand new studio in the United Kingdom was incredibly difficult. So difficult in fact, that he's worried the country as a whole is losing out on fresh talent and opportunities.

"There's not enough support," he explained. "When you look across the UK industry, it's no surprise that there's not more studios starting up."

Parsons' bluntness was refreshing—he seemed as eager to ring the bell about the UK's funding troubles as he was to show off Funko Fusion (which admittedly caught my eye because of how surprisingly nightmare fuel-inducing it was).

What's to be done about the UK industry's struggles? Parsons explained it's not just what the government can do, but also what needs to be done in the investment community if they want to keep revenue flowing into the British isles.

Little funding and less assistance

Related:Why is it so expensive to make games in the United States?

Parson's description of the beleaguered UK funding scene sounded like a confluence of small catastrophes, some borne out by the economic impact of Brexit, and others by shrinking interest in game companies in training the next generation of developers.

1010 Games is privately funded, so Parsons said they dodged a number of initial challenges that come with standing up a studio. "It would be great if there were more grants, more incentives to do stuff," he said. "We've had to do a lot of stuff off our own back, off our own money."

The lack of funding and incentives, he worries, is disincentivizing companies from hiring and training junior developers. Over half of 1010 Games employees were hired fresh out of university—a fact Parsons is proud of, but he's frustrated they're one of the few companies reportedly doing so. He said "one of the biggest problems the game industry is facing is a shortage of talent because people aren't hiring juniors."

"We as an industry are not being sustainable."

Like other developers trying to make game studios and not VC-friendly exit vehicles, Parsons said the team ran into headwinds chasing funding because investors weren't interested in an old-fashioned company that turns out premium product. Funders wanted to hear the words "web3," "AR," or "VR" whenever they took a pitch. ("We weren't cool enough," he joked.)

Image via 1010 Games.

Developers in the UK have also been hit hard by a Catch-22 that's impacting up-and-coming indies everywhere: the cost of the "first-playable." Investors are (perhaps rightly) not satisfied anymore by prototypes and pitch decks, and want to see vertical slices and first-playable that capture the general feel of the game.

Even for Funko Fusion, a game inspired by the TT Games
Lego series and produced by its veterans, it took a solid chunk of time to answer

That's a reasonable request...but both of those products cost money. Money that can only be secured with decent funding. He agreed with a sentiment expressed by the developers at Mobius Digital that investors and publishers need to become more comfortable "funding failure."

The British government does offer game developers some incentives in the form of tax relief, but that tends to benefit existing studios. New companies have to deal with challenges like legal fees or securing office space and equipment. "I can imagine that for other people, there's they're just hitting a brick wall, and that's maybe why nothing sort of happens.

Increasing government funding for games or the arts might be a tough sell in the UK at this moment. A number of structural challenges are keeping down the country's economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and challenges like an underfunded National Institute of Health require faster intervention than flagging video game development.

Parsons said he'd like to see the country introduce students earlier to the basics of game development, noting that the UK has great universities, but that careers in the creative arts aren't pitched the same way in primary schools.

He hopes one day students can be encouraged to pursue careers in game development with the same gusto as they are engineering or medicine.

Help me get my feet back on the ground

The challenges Parsons described are the same ones developers are enduring across the globe, but calling out what struggles the United Kingdom is facing is still important, as it will need unique solutions to weather the storm. A Bank of England report from early 2024 shows the country is still struggling to attract new investment years after exiting the European Union, meaning developers are chasing some of the same funds for the last few years.

The British Film Institute did announce today that it's awarding £510,000 to four projects meant to support developers across the nation, but it's a drop in the bucket for what will be needed in the years ahead.

So what's to be done in the country that gave us the ZX Spectrum, Sea of Thieves, and Alien Isolation? Probably a lot. A shortage of juniors, more flexible investment strategies, and proper incentives could go a long way. But it's fair to say more will need to be done to help the nation compete in a business that's becoming more global by the day.