Last week the United Kingdom held a public referendum to determine whether it should exit (or “Brexit”) the European Union. More than 30 million people voted, and the majority of them said “Leave.”
This has the potential to significantly affect our global game industry. The UK has been a part of the EU for over 40 years, and the specter of its looming departure has kicked off a series of significant poltical, cultural and economic shake-ups around the world — starting with a steep drop in the value of the British pound.
What this means for game developers, both within the U.K. and without, won’t become fully clear for some time. The UK is still sorting out exactly how and when it will extricate itself from the EU, and that will in turn affect the way people work, travel, earn and spend money in Europe.
For developers in the UK, a Brexit seems likely to cut off access to EU grant programs like Creative Europe, which has helped fund UK studios like The Chinese Room, Italic Pig and Revolution Software. It may also complicate things for UK devs employed by studios in EU member countries, and vice versa.
To get a better understanding of the situation from multiple perspectives, Gamasutra reached out to folks from across the game industry last week to get their thoughts on what this means for game developers around the world.
Some of them shared (via Twitter) brief opinions on topics like access to the European labor market, free movement throughout Europe, and what the shifting exchange rate of British pounds to U.S. dollars means for their bottom lines.
Others shared longer and more nuanced thoughts with Gamasutra, and so we’ve taken the liberty of excerpting their comments below in an effort to shed light on what the UK’s decision means for the game industry at large.
– Phil Harrison, London-based investor and entrepreneur in games and technology. Formerly a corporate vice president at Microsoft, a president of worldwide studios at Sony and (ages ago) a British game designer and producer.
– Patrick O’Luanaigh, CEO and founder of U.K. studio nDreams (The Assembly, Gunner)
– Cliff Harris, longtime game developer and founder of U.K.-based Positech Games (Democracy 3, Gratuitous Space Battles)
– Rami Ismail, Vlambeer (Nuclear Throne, Luftrausers) cofounder and world traveller
– Jim Rossignol, longtime writer about games and cofounder of the U.K.-based Big Robot (Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Avseq)
Meanwhile, both TIGA and UKIE (which serve as trade bodies for video game developers in the U.K. and the EU) have made a public show of looking out for game dev interests in a post-Brexit world.
While UKIE refrained from taking a public stance on the vote, it now seeks to reassure British game devs that it will be working hard to ensure the region’s game industry is well-represented in the government’s efforts to gracefully Brexit.
“Ukie is committed to ensuring the UK is the best place in the world to make and sell games,” Ukie chief Dr. Jo Twist stated publicly last week. “Although this decision and the political uncertainty it brings will have an impact on our businesses it is important to remember that we are already a globally successful sector and a leading exporter in the digital economy. Ukie will continue to work hard with colleagues in government and other sectors to ensure we continue to have the best possible business environment for our sector.”
TIGA laid out specific priorities to fight for amid the post-Brexit turmoil, suggesting that access to financing and tax breaks, access to talent, and the fate of intellectual property rights are now key issues facing the U.K. game industry.
“The UK video games development sector is an export focused industry that sells content all over the globe,” stated TIGA chairman (and Rebellion chief) Jason Kingsley. “We have a highly skilled workforce, a creative and growing studio population and a heritage of thirty years of success. While uncertainty is unwelcome for business, the UK video games industry will remain strong, resilient and competitive.”