“It might surprise people, especially those in the games industry, that
games is part of the tech industry. It’s also part of the creative industries. But, in the UK as a whole, we tend to not really see ourselves as part of either - games is something alone. But anyway, I applied for funding to build a stupidly ambitious event, which I pitched as Scottish Games Week. And lo and behold, I got it. So I then had to go and build a stupidly ambitious programme for Scottish Games Week, which I now have in place.”
MORE THAN GAMES The headline events of Scottish Games Week include More Than Games, in Glasgow on October 24th, “My big pitch here and what I’m doing in Scotland, is to emphasise the ecosystem rather than the industry,” says Baglow, who believes the games ecosystem in Scotland is five times bigger than might be calculated, certainly bigger than the 2,000 people that make up the 125 studios across the country. “As an example, we’ve got Access, an animation giant in Glasgow. They’ve got as many people as Rockstar. They’re hiring Unreal developers like it’s going out of business, because the real time animation team is using game engines. You know, more and more of the companies in the screen sector are reliant on games technologies like Unity and Unreal, and so on. So More Than Games is the opening event very specifically to pull people in from all areas of the digital tech world, all areas of the creative industries and say ‘games are relevant to you’.”
THE WEEK THAT WILL The focus for Tuesday’s events is on Edinburgh, for the week’s Education Symposium. This aims to look at the teaching of games and how games are used in education, specifically in Scotland, but also across the UK. “The teaching of computer science up here is absolutely screwed,” says Baglow. “We don’t have enough teachers, the people who want to study computer science can’t, and I think as an attempt to address this, games have a very big role to play” That evening, members of the Scottish Parliament are being invited
to see for themselves the importance of the nation’s games sector and how it might help power the rise of its tech sector as the government aims to become a top five nation in the realm of fintech. Wednesday is when Scottish Games Week will go nationwide, with
game jams, esports events, and local conferences and workshops in every region. Then on Thursday and Friday the spotlight will be on Dundee for the main conference, what Baglow says will be the closest the week will come to being Scotland’s answer to Develop in Brighton, and which will end with the first ever Scottish Games Awards. “It’s long
overdue,” says Baglow while remembering an awards
ceremony in 1995 that was never repeated. “We have an awful lot of very talented, very skilled and very creative people working in Scotland, but you hear about them all too rarely, because you tend not to see them on stage at GDC or Develop. They’re not always the first to put themselves forward.”
REACHING IN The highlight of the conference for many will be its line-up of speakers, an array of which will front not just the conference, but also More Than Games and the Education Symposium. Unsurprisingly, many of those set to speak during Scottish Games Week are either based in Scotland or with deep ties to the country, such as programmer Graeme Devine, of id Software (Quake 3), Microsoft, Apple and Ensemble Studios fame. “He’s now running his own studio, but he’s a Glasgow boy,” reveals Baglow. “He’s coming back to speak in Scotland, I think for the first time ever.”
“Games are Scotland’s secret weapon. If we can just connect the game sector up more effectively, we’re going to be doing something that no other country in the world is capable of”
The response to Scottish Games Week has been heartening for
Baglow, not just from those happy to speak, but from participants at all levels and others wanting to get involved to ensure that there’s not just a Scottish Games Week in 2023, but that it helps to further the cause of Scotland’s gaming industry, not just in and of itself, but as part of a growing tech and creative sector that Baglow insists gaming is intrinsically linked to. “We need the discussions and the topics and the themes from
Scottish Games Week to continue on after the event in a much bigger context. Internally, the games community in Scotland is incredibly strong, really friendly, very helpful, …reasonably social. But we need to forge those links outside the sector, and make sure that we have this opportunity for games to reach out, but also for all of these other sectors to understand more about how to reach in.”
September 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 45
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
