NESTA To Help Form UK Self-Publishing Coalition

The UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) wants to create a new consortium of game developers that will act together as a digital publisher, and the concept is getting an endorsement for culture minister Ed Vaizey. "Creative and innovative ways of working are exactly what the games industry needs to grow," Vaizey suggests. NESTA has already begun recruiting a CEO for the new publishing group, which it says has the support from the UK's major trade bodies, UKIE and TIGA, as well as the Game Horizon business network. It plans to work with "up to eight" independently-owned UK developers who work in traditional as well as mobile and social development. It'll also employ marketing and distribution support to establish a new developer-owned publisher. Through this method, NESTA says it hopes the coalition can overcome "the constraints of the traditional publisher and developer model" and allow developers to retain control over their IP and marketing. Although NESTA is establishing the consortium initially, the group hopes that the end result will be a new digital publisher that's self-supported "after an initial one-year investment." Says Vaizey: "By bringing companies together through this new initiative NESTA is helping developers get the most out of their intellectual property. We need a sustainable UK industry and this initiative will really help.' TIGA CEO Richard Wilson says the initiative is in line with its own efforts to help developers retain IP control, while UKIE chair Andy Payne said NESTA's new approach "can learn lessons from the past, whilst optimizing the opportunities through technology to successful monetization of the creative content." NESTA will hold a series of meetings for interested developers in December and January; interested parties can learn more at the group's official website.