WARWICKSHIRE – HOME TO THE “SILICON SPA”

Warwickshire has one of the UK’s strongest hubs for the gaming sector, with Leamington Spa – known in the industry as “Silicon Spa”, right at the centre.

Its history goes back to the 1980s and two pairs of siblings, the Darling brothers and the Oliver twins.

In 1986 Richard and David Darling founded Codemasters, now one of the oldest British games studios, which in 2021 was acquired by Electronic Arts for $1.2 billion. Their stated aim was to create budget-price games at full-price quality.

Starting out with BMX Simulator, the studio went on to create massive franchises including the Brian Lara Cricket, GRID, LMA Manager, TOCA, Overlord and Colin McRae Rally and Dirt series.

Meanwhile, Andrew and Philip Oliver originally started out working at Codemasters before breaking away to create their own studio, Blitz Games Studios, in 1990.

Before closing the studio in 2013 they created games for global franchises including Chicken Run, Lilo & Stitch, Reservoir Dogs and SpongeBob SquarePants.

After the studio closed, the twins set up Radiant Worlds, which was then acquired by Oxfordshire-based Rebellion in 2018, becoming Rebellion Warwick.

As with another of the UK’s big gaming hubs, Guildford, the presence of these studios drew talented creatives to the region who would go on to create their own studios further down the line, becoming the cluster it is today.

As Lauran Carter, Head of Communications at full-service creative production studio Liquid Crimson and co-founder of Guildford. Games explained:

“Since the Eighties, studios have made games, grown larger and larger, then shed. The shedding can come from knowing there’s a game down the line that maybe isn’t something you’re interested in making.

“Studios shed once a project is finished with people deciding to start their own thing, and that small thing grows from being a very furtive project to some of the bigger names we see today.”

Some of the best-known franchises to have been developed in some part in Warwickshire include Far Cry, LittleBigPlanet and Forza.

Leamington Spa is also home to Identity Spark, which was established in 2013 to support the needs of gaming and technology companies through branding, marketing and communications. The firm is fronted by Founder and CEO Natalie Gri th, who in 2015 was listed as one of the Top 100 Women in Games.

Oxfordshire – the home of Rebellion

The biggest name in gaming in the Oxfordshire region is probably the behemoth Rebellion, who aside from a 30-year history publishing video games including the Sniper Elite, Zombie Army and Evil Genius series, have also branched out into the worlds of comics, books, TV and film.

Excalibur Publishing is a Banbury-based games company known for making simulator games for PC, Mac and VR, including train, driving and flying sims, along with a range of accessories and peripherals such as headsets and driving wheels.

Also based in the county is SpecialE ect, a charity which helps to make gaming accessible to disabled people who may struggle to use traditional input devices. Among the help they o er are bespoke gaming controls and regular articles explaining how to make popular games like FIFA easier to play.

Wiltshire’s gaming sector: small but active

While the county has relatively few games studios, it is testament to the reach of the industry that there are still a number of active, if smaller, studios in Wiltshire.

Crooks Peak is a Calne-based developer specialising in virtual reality (VR) games. This one-man studio released Alien Extraction, a puzzle strategy game, on Steam and Meta Quest last year and is currently working on its next project titled By Grit Alone.

Swindon-based Geek Beach has created a massively-multiplayer online (MMO) game which allows players to create a planet, build a fleet of warships, explore the universe and fight other players for the Apple and Google app stores.

Bristol and South Gloucestershire: Aardman moves into games

Better known for its long history of animation, Bristol-based Aardman moved into the games sector fairly recently with games including Home Sheep Home, a platform puzzle game set in the Shaun the Sheep universe and 11-11: Memories Retold, an adventure designed to retell stories from the front lines of World War One.

Diva is a Bristol-based creative agency which has created campaigns for some of the best known names in entertainment including 2K Games, PlayStation and Netflix. Last year, it created an Out of Home Advertising campaign for Elden Ring, one of the biggest games of 2022.

Co-op Mode is a not-for-profit company o ering deskspace for developers in the Bristol area. Launching last year, they o er facilities including meeting rooms where smaller studios can come together to create games.

Worcestershire – an active region for creative studios

Flix Interactive is a Bromsgrovebased studio established in 2012. It has since partnered with a number of other studios in the region including Rebellion, Sumo Digital and Xbox Game Studios to create titles including Sea of Thieves, Sniper Elite 5 and Crackdown 3.

Evesham-based GamesAid is a charity working with the games industry to raise money for other UK charities working with children and young people. Each year they choose a new group of charities to work with, this year supporting organisations including Solving Kids’ Cancer and Winston’s Wish.

Fatcat Softworks is an Ombersleybased creator of games and machines for the gambling industry.

Gloucestershire, from iPhone games to immersive experiences

Cirencester-based Neon Play is a mobile games developer which has been making games since the early 2000s. Starting out making flash games for global brands such as Ferrari, Tesco and the BBC, the company moved on to the iPhone in 2009 and hasn’t looked back since.

In 2016 the company was acquired by the publishers Hachette.

Stroud-based All Seeing Eye creates augmented, immersive and social experiences. Straddling the line between storytelling, film-making and interactive design, the company’s work has featured at games festivals such as Tribeca, Sundance and SXSW. In 2021 it created an interactive virtual reality experience for the Coventry City of Culture named In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats.