Raise the Game

Raise the Game is a new initiative from NESTA to help drive growth, collaboration and innovation in the UK video games industry. The £450k project is part of our Innovators Growth programme.

Raise the Game focuses on driving business growth in the following areas:

Talent – finding and developing talented games developers
Business skills – building commercial skills through a unique mentoring programme
Building networks - to share production resources
New buyers – broaden the commissioning opportunities for games SMEs
Developing IP - over convergent platforms

NESTA and Tiga are calling for video games developers who want to explore the potential of resource sharing, including recruitment, job sharing, job swaps, business mentoring, innovation internships and collaboration projects, to come forward.

Any new ways of driving business growth that emerge from Raise the Game will be shared with support agencies across the UK to help other businesses. 

Raise the Game will comprise four pilot projects:

• Shared Resourcing
• Mentoring
• Dare to Grow
• Crossover

"The advent of digital distribution has disrupted the traditional distribution methods, opening exciting opportunities for content creators to deliver their products to their audiences in innovative ways."

Charles Cecil, Managing Director, Revolution Software

Shared Resourcing

This pilot will provide a range of human resources solutions for games developers. Tiga will work to help games developers find and recruit talented staff, to share staff resources, and to facilitate collaboration between industries through job swaps.

Tiga will recruit a project manager, who will encourage skills-sharing and development to accelerate production and reduce costs. The project manger will do this by facilitating staff recruitment, job-sharing between industries, and job swaps within the games industry and other complementary industries (e.g. animation, broadcast etc) in order to

We’ll launch this pilot in January 2009.

For further details about this pilot, please contact Richard Wilson, Tiga CEO, at Richard.wilson@tiga.org

Mentoring

This pilot plans to team-up video games developers with specialist partners, who will act as mentors to support business development and/or access new revenue streams.

Up to 10 video games businesses from across the UK will be selected to take part in a year-long project that will focus on business growth. To give a good representative balance of the industry in the UK, we expect the selected companies to be spread by geography, business size and business issues.

Developers will be expected to work closely with their selected mentor, to explore new ways of exploiting technology for profit and accessing new market channels.

Developers will work with their mentors for around two days a month at mutually convenient times. Our idea of a successful pilot is business being better placed to attract investment and find new market opportunities. We expect each business to receive business mentoring for 6-12 months, according to milestones for success.

Mentor costs are funded directly by NESTA – however, we will not fund development of content. Each selected business will also be allocated a grant award worth £3,000 to cover any out-of-pocket expenses during the course of the programme.

How to apply?

You can apply for our mentoring pilot here. If your application is successful, you may be invited to an interview where you will be required to make a short presentation to the selection panel.

Interviews will be held at NESTA’s offices in London during October 2008. We’ll reimburse you for your travel expenses.

Programme timetable:

If you have any questions about the programme, please contact jackie.mckenzie@nesta.org.uk

Dare to Grow

Together with Abertay University, we’re working to develop the innovation capacity of the talented individuals working in teams in the Dare to be Digital competition, in a way that benefits SME games developers.

The project aims to help independent SME games companies attract and sustainably employ first-rate talent. It will do this by developing at least 12 internships, where graduates will work with independent SMEs on specific innovation projects.

We launched Dare to Grow with Tiga in July 2008, with an initial call to SME developers to identify appropriate projects.

How it works 

Dare to Grow will match up SME games developers with talented art and science graduates. Developers with an interest in creating a production pipeline/tool enhancement will work with interns to carry out specific projects. A number of intern pairs will be evaluated to select the most appropriate pair to undertake each project

Interns will receive additional sessions on innovation technology to help them prepare for the internship. They’ll also receive a payment from the project budget, which the SME developer can top up with a completion bonus if they wish. These top ups won’t be compulsory.

All IP generated will be owned by the SME games developer partner. Dare to Grow aims to attract graduates to work for small companies that might not otherwise have had an opportunity to recruit them.

A series of sessions with innovation technologists will take place between September and November 2008, prior to the interns taking up their assignments. From these, we hope to identify up to six projects to be carried out between October 2008 and May 2009.

How to apply

To apply to Dare to Grow, please visit www.daretobedigital.com/dare-to-grow/ 

Outcomes

Through Dare to Grow we hope to achieve the following outcomes:

• Successfully deliver and implement up to six in-company innovation projects, with economic value generated for the SME games developer participants.

• Up to 12 interns to gain experience of working in-company, with employers securing a closer view of the interns as potential employees.

• Demonstrate a potentially transferable innovation model, involving young, talented innovation teams using innovation technology to deliver innovations.

• Adopt innovation internship project into routine activities for SME games developers

Project timetable

For further information on Dare to Grow, please email Chris Young

Crossover

Crossover is a series of ‘innovation labs’ for creative professionals from a diverse range of professionals, including: game developers, TV and film producers, web designers, animators, theatre practitioners and others.

The Crossover labs aim to provide a framework to establish new creative and commercial collaborations. They are also an opportunity to explore new business models and new markets.

Each Crossover lab will run over five days. At the end of each lab participants will get the chance to meet with commissioners and buyers from TV, advertising, and public and private investment sectors.

We plan to hold three Crossover labs in the UK in 2008/09: Crossover Docs, Crossover Kids and Crossover Games.  NESTA’s support for the pilot will provide free places for representatives from at least 10 games companies in one of these labs.

For more information about the Crossover labs, including the dates of each lab and to make an application, please visit http://www.crossoverlabs.com or email info@crossoverlabs.com

Crossover is supported by NESTA, Screen Yorkshire, Skillset, London Development Agency, Yorkshire Forward and the Wellcome Trust.

Partners

	Abertay University Abertay University in Dundee offers world-leading courses in computer arts and computer games.
	Tiga Tiga is the national trade association representing the business and commercial interests of games software developers in the UK and Europe