Introducing the UK Video Games Council, 10/07/2025

• Nick Button-Brown, Co-Chair of the UK Video Games Council, talks to us about the brand new body

• Microsoft job cuts and state of the games media dominate a busy Develop conference

• Tom Regan grabs a nice pic with Tony Hawk to celebrate the launch of the remaster of the third and fourth games

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Hello VGIM-ers,

I’m back in the hot seat for one final time before I head out on book leave, with George Young and Tom Regan ready to keep VGIM going until I’m back in September.

But before we dive into my final newsletter for a while, I’m delighted to announce that the US rights for my forthcoming non-fiction book Power Play have been snapped up.

Jake Bonar at Prometheus jumped at the chance to snap up the rights earlier this year, which means the book will be available in stores across America. Thank you to my agent Max Edwards and Emily Randle, the international rights selling expert representing the book, for making it happen.

I’m also happy to say that the book has a new subtitle to reflect the book’s tighter, more urgent narrative.

Power Play: Video Games, Politics, and the Global Battle for Influence will tell the story of how video game content, communication channels and communities became a channel for political influence capable of shaping how the world works.

If you want to read more about the book, including what prompted the new subtitle and what the next steps are for me, sign up as a VGIM Insider to read tomorrow’s Ask George column for just £3 a month (or £25 a year).

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UnButtoning(-Brown): Naturally, the creation of a new arms-length government body is right up my pathetically nerdy little political street. So in all my excitement to find out more about the council, I grabbed Nick Button-Brown, the council’s new Co-Chair and long-respected industry bigwig, to give him a grilling about what the council hopes to achieve.

Kind of a big deal: Nick is the games industry’s loveliest powerbroker. In between being Chair of Outright Games and running the UK video games angel network, he’s been Chair of the BAFTA Games Committee, popped up on the Ukie board on a number of occasions and has been giving OKRE a hand in mapping the full social, cultural and economic value of games.

Not listening: So when he told me that the Government has had a bad track record of listening to games businesses, I felt reassured that I hadn’t just been imagining things during my many years on the industry’s political frontline. “I’d say too often over the last 20 years, when Government are making decisions about our industry, they’re not actually talking to us at the time they’re making their decisions,” said Nick.

Screened from view: This makes lots of sense given how little most Governments have cared about games, how most screen bodies have underrepresented the industry’s interests and, let’s be honest, how our tendency to hide under the covers has set our interests back by decades.

On the frontier: But a year into Sir Keir Starmer’s thoroughly underwhelming time at the top, his team have got one thing right: they love games. And after signing off a plan to grow the games business as part of its Industrial Strategy to support high potential ‘frontier industries’, the time was ripe to form a new body that could help the Government build a proper agenda for industry growth that could feed into its plan for a decade of economic renewal.

Input accepted: “The importance of the Video Games Council is that they’ll be talking to us before they’re making the decisions,” Nick explains. “They’re making decisions based on hopefully good and valid input. And if we can make that relationship tighter, that’s great”.

Balancing act: But to make the council work, it needs to have the right balance of representatives to ensure that any vision for the industry is truly representative of what everyone needs.

All the fun of the industry fair: In its first iteration, the council consists of 14 members who have been hand-picked to provide coverage across areas like triple-A development, indie development, mobile game creation and the provision of services. The council is also expected to be full of frontline industry experts who represent the geographic and demographic diversity of the industry, ensuring that it is a proper representative body in the process.

Frontline experience: “The big thing for me is that it’s [the Council] full of people who are working in the industry right now,” Nick said. “They’re running companies. They’re dealing with the problems of running companies. They’re seeing not just themselves, but what other companies are doing. And I think everybody on the council has already shown that they want to look at the wider industry, that they want to do things for the good of the industry.”

Bigwigs aplenty: And when you look at the names announced today, you can see where Nick is coming from. Of the 14 names announced, the vast majority are respected frontline leaders who represent most of the industry’s interests.

Roll-call: You have the heft of Tara Saunders (previously at PlayStation but now leading Larian’s team in the UK), Saad Choudri (Megabrain behind MiniClip’s multi-billion dollar success) and Maria Sayans (ustwo’s thoughtful head honcho) on the list. And with other big hitters like Chris Van Der Kuyl at 4J Studios, Take-Two’s Dave Gould and FuturLab’s Kirsty Rigden also on board, the appointees mostly fit the brief of industry pros at the cutting edge of development.

Tone deaf: The only bum note regarding the make-up of the first council is Microsoft’s decision to put a lawyer on the board. While I wasn’t able to ask Nick about this because the final list of appointees hadn’t been finalised when we spoke, numerous people familiar with the negotiations to form the council said that Microsoft knew the terms of reference and chose to ignore them when appointing a council representative. Perhaps they were worried that they wouldn’t have any developers to represent them ahead of last week’s lay-offs? Who knows.

Starcrossed trade associations: Aside from Microsoft’s misjudgment, the most notable development appears to be the partial cessation of rivalry between the UK games industry’s Montagues and Capulets, Ukie and TIGA – the two trade associations that represent the industry.

Arms-length success: By supporting the foundation of a joint body, the two trade associations have helped the Government to form the first properly arms-length representative body for the games business. Given that almost all dialogue with the games industry has tended to go through a screen body or a group like the Creative Industries Council, Nick describes its development as “massively important” for the sector at large.

Woah, woah, woah: So, the UK Video Games Council is going to transform the industry forever more? Steady on, there. Despite featuring plenty of bigwigs (and, mercifully, a term limit to stop anyone overstaying their welcome), the new body is more likely to be a slow-burning success story than a rocketship of growth.

Limited resources: Its status as a twice-a-year talking shop (minus ad hoc requests and additional strategy meetings) means that it can only tilt the wheel rather than grab hold of it. The focus on economic growth is right for a body that’s informing the Government’s growth strategy, but it does mean that it is not expected to act as a sounding board for cultural or social issues that the industry intersects with. The appointment of the council also lacked transparency, leaving some people grumbling over whether it had missed a trick on appointing more regional representatives or captains of industry from spaces like the co-dev industry.

Steady as it grows: However, Nick was keen to stress that the newly revealed Council is the first draft of history rather than its Master Document Version 64 PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD USE THIS endpoint. “It will evolve and change. It’s what we’ve got to do. We’re going to build up towards the first meeting with the Minister, that will set out the agenda for the next ten years. And it will change and it will refine, and so will the members of the council too.” This is in no small part due to the implementation of three-year term limits and a maximum of two terms per council member to ensure fresh blood is introduced.

Linked up thinking: So, while I can nitpick at the Council all day because I am that nerdy little policy boy – and, frankly, I already have – I think it can only be seen as a good first step forward. It provides an opportunity for the industry to seriously strengthen ties with the Government. It puts the sector on a more level footing with other creative industries. And it raises the tantalising prospect of more to come in the future, including the dream scenario of it transforming into a fully funded arms-length body capable of shoving forward much more of the industry’s agenda.

Much better than nothing: So here’s to the first ever UK Video Games Council. It is only a first step. It isn’t perfect. And it doesn’t mean the sector will suddenly overcome decades of misunderstanding from Government. But it looks like a solid starting point and something that the industry can build upon in the years ahead.

The full list of UK Video Games Council members: Jason Kingsley CBE, Rebellion (Co-Chair); Nick Button-Brown, Outright Games (Co-Chair); Emily Bailey, Green-BIT; Saad Choudri, Miniclip; Charu Desodt, Interior:Night; Kirsty Rigden, Futurelab; Dave Gould, T2; Chris Van Der Kuyl, 4J Studios; Donna Orlowski, Chucklefish; Nick Poole OBE, CEO, Ukie; Tara Saunders, Larian; Maria Sayans, ustwo Games; Tim Varney, Microsoft; Dr Richard Wilson OBE, CEO, TIGA

Developing news: It’s a UK heavy VGIM this week because it is the most wonderful time of the year for the British games industry. Thousands of industry leading professionals (and me) decamped to Brighton for Develop conference to take meetings, discuss business plans and honour industry tradition by eating as many free ice creams as possible from the Hangar 13 truck without vomiting.

Bad vibes: The mood going into Develop wasn’t great. Microsoft’s decision to lay off large parts of its games business with the tactfulness of an axe murderer in the grip of a blood frenzy weighed heavily on the mind. The cancellation of Rare’s Everwild was the talk of much of the UK games industry, while the unfortunate fate of Romero Games – which is currently wobbling after an undisclosed publisher *coughs, Xbox, coughs* pulled its cash – perturbed my Irish industry contacts.

Feeling the squeeze: And when I got to the event itself, good vibes were short on the ground. Indie developers were discussing being squeezed by publishers, with the shortage of cash in the market leading to worse terms for them. Co-development businesses were discussing raging competition in the market, with the risk of a race to the bottom as battered games companies entered the sector from all sides in an effort to find work. Games media, meanwhile, discussed their fears about generative AI knocking away key pillars of their work at another well attended VGIM Business Breakfast (ta to Games Press for sponsoring).

Green shoots: But for those whose disposition is as sunny as the Brighton weather, there were some positives to spot. The Games Growth Package has energised local game clusters, with reps from Liverpool, Teesside, Manchester and Northern Ireland eyeing up opportunities to do more following fresh funding for London Games Festival. Marketing agencies were talking up their prospects, with a pretty hefty release slate later this year keeping them comparatively well-fed. And while the games media chat had plenty of worrying things to chew over, the session also concluded that publications which have distinct perspectives, supportive communities and a direct relationship with readers can thrive *fist pumps gently*.

Unmasking the truth: So, this year’s Develop was not one for the industry’s history books. But having had the chance to drift from networking event to networking event as I usually do, it was nevertheless clear that the UK industry is choosing to stay optimistic. Or it is great at masking its emotions. Let me get back to you on that one.

Keywords Studios has appointed Jonathan Zweig as Chief Revenue Officer…Two job changes at Fireshine Games, with Tony Evans becoming a Producer and Tom Knight taking on the role of Product Manager…Arden Aspinall and Jon Seymour have been appointed head of Double Eleven’s new co-dev studio Cast Iron Studios in Wakefield…And Arthur Tolmie is in as Chief Communications Officer at strategic marketing agency Pixel Helix…

Playground Games is looking for a new Community Director…Virtuous is hiring a Head of Game Division for China in London…Wizards of the Coast is recruiting on the West Coast for a Senior Director of Marketing…Roblox is still looking for a Senior Manager, Public Policy down under…And Playing for the Planet is hiring a new Communications and PR Manager…

• Bit Summit, Kyoto – 18-20th July

• ChinaJoy, Shanghai – 1st-4th August

• Siggraph, Vancouver – 10th-14th August

• gamescom, Cologne – 20th-24th August

• XDS, Vancouver – 2nd-5th September

• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4 – Remaster of two classic skating games leaves us all feeling as happy as Tom did when he met Tony Hawk.

• EA Sports College Football 26 – Latest entry in EA’s “Madden, if it was full of students on scholarships” drops this week.

• Patapon 1+2 Replay – Compendium of classic rhythm action games land Switch, PS5 and Steam tap their way to glory.

What’s more exciting than the announcement that the UK’s new national Gaming and Esports Centre is set to open in Sunderland next year?

The fact that there’s a chance to bid on its naming rights.

Yes, you can get in touch with the British Esports Arena to express your interest in coughing up the cash to name the new facility when it opens its doors in 2026.

The VGIM Arena does have a ring to it, now you mention it…