Collaboration can secure future of Britain's games industry
Jagex’s Mark Gerhard has called for UK studios to work closer together to make the nation a world leader in game development once again.
In an interview with Develop Gerhard, head of the UK’s largest studio, said companies should share tools, technology and other knowledge.
“I firmly believe that the future of games development in the UK can be secured through increased collaboration,” said the CEO of the RuneScape company.
“Very few UK developers are direct competitors, fighting for the same users or creating games in the same genre. To remain competitive we need to take the lead, and share our tools and our technologies so that we do not have to reinvent the wheel every time someone makes a new game.”
Gerhard went on to suggest that everyone involved with game development in the United Kingdom has a duty to pursue collaboration to prevent UK talent from moving overseas.
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“It is important to stress that it’s not all doom and gloom and I don’t think we should all pack up and leave the UK,” he added.
“But there are major challenges ahead. I see increased competition, uncompetitive tax systems and a diminishing talent pool as the three biggest threats facing the UK developers."
The Jagex CEO said he believes overseas studios’ ability to create games cheaply serves to threaten the UK industry. He also expressed concern that some studios in Britain demonstrate a lack of agility with regard to reacting to the shift in focus away from traditional distribution.
“While I expect more studios will close, the UK remains a fantastic hub of talent and we need to take steps to protect this,” he said.
“Britain has a long-standing reputation for making some of the greatest games and we must continue to create unique, creative and world beating IP to secure a
brighter future.”
He added: “Jagex is proud to be British. We are British through and through, and we hope that the UK development scene can quickly return to growth.”
In recent months Jagex has been very public in moving to seek to employ those who lost their jobs to the troubles affecting studios such as Bizarre in Liverpool; a move Gerhard sees as vital to protecting the UK development industry.
“With more and more studio closures, we need to ensure that we are providing the best opportunities for those looking to work in the sector so that the UK doesn’t become a brain drain of development talent,” stated Gerhard.
“If we can overcome these challenges Britain can become a world leading development nation once again."
Gerhard concluded by confirming that he is ‘hugely confident’ about Jagex’s future: “We are in a strong position and have ambitious plans for 2011 which include expanding our games catalogue, not only with our own games but with the addition of some very exciting new IPs as well.”
I doubt the sentiment behind this article very much. I'm sure Jagex don't care about other studios, they're looking out for number one as any business does. I wonder what their new IP is. Oh that's right, I already know! Wonder where that came from?
A cross collaboration between various independant studios, or a indie with a larger publisher/developer makes more sense.
Integrated with 3rd party and various outsource firms, and educational - I believe that would be a better sentiment.
Whereas a teaming of two publisher developers eg. EA and Sony, or THQ and Konami would be unlikely.
How can Gerrard have the gaul to say this after ripping the heart out of a previously successful British Midlands based Developer and feasting on its entrails.
Care to elaborate on that, V?
Oh right... there it is! My sentiments exactly V!
In theory, this is a good idea, however, in practice all developers are in competition, if not directly then indirectly.
Given developers need publishing deals, they are all competing for a limited number of deals per year.
They are also competing for gamers limited spending power.
And finally, coming up with the next big thing is not an idea you can casually share around.
The practical ways to make this grand idea work seem to be hard to find, and indeed I don't see any proposed in this article, other than sharing tools & technology. This is effectively giving away your hard fought progress, when companies like Valve and Epic clearly make money charging for their technology, and when EA bought up Criterion to aquire renderware (or to take it off the market).
Technology, if you have it, is an asset, just like a game, and we don't give our games away either.
I doubt any company with shareholders would be keen to see their tech being given away.
one cannot feast on something that was anemic and without substance. appears from posts that former employees doubt and question how their executive blokes handled themselves, so why criticize jagex?
ripping the heart out of a midlands developer? is this the same one that their own people in manchester called them 'snake oil' salesmen with their undoubtedly long-in-the-tooth-tech? what have they done of substance? what have they done apart from an underwhelming football mmo and decidedly average racing game? difficult to rip the heart out of something that has yet to show heart, apart from the possibility that they are likely decent blokes doing the work.
there is clearly something monumental is claiming, and perhaps this is nothing more than self serving excuses of the midlands senior execs? after all, would they blame themselves when they cannot even see how uninspiring their work to date has been?
no, i prefer to believe that gerhard is honest.
I'm criticizing Gerhard because what ever you think about Monumental or think you know, the closer cooperation he is calling for hurt another UK developer badly... very badly and ended up with my families main earner on the dole.
Monumental as far as I know are not claiming anything - we were not told any details when the redundancies happened. I did hear a few days ago that the IP deal we were working on, that Monumental spent over a year trying to land, is now with Jagex as are some of the key staff. If that is not feasting on the entrails I don't know what is.
Any developers out there if you are thinking of getting into bed with Jagex remember to take your garlic and crucifix with you.
I'm sure Gerhard would love to 'co-operate' with other companies. The technology that they have is limited to Java and billing systems. Sure, that's done them pretty well with RuneScape, but that game's days are numbered.
Monumental really should have seen it coming. They brought Jagex in as partners on this huge IP that I probably can't name, after collaborating with them on another smaller project. With partners like that, who needs enemies?
