Ukie are delighted to have partnered again with Creative England, recruiting businesses who work in the games sector for the next cohorts of the prestigious Creative Enterprise programmes.
Our Creative Enterprise Games programmes exist to help ambitious businesses get the skills, knowledge, confidence and contacts that they need to succeed.
The Games Scale Up first ran in 2020 and is a prestigious 6-month programme, developed in partnership between Creative England and Ukie, to support more experienced games businesses.
In 2021, Ukie and Creative England launched a programme targeted at earlier stage game studios and, for the first time, a programme specifically devised for technology creators and service providers adjacent to the games sector. These are our Foundations for Game Studios and Foundations for Creative Tech & Services programmes.
These earlier stage programmes run over 3 months and provide the insights, network and resources needed to grow a sustainable business.
All of our programmes have been devised with industry leaders for games businesses who are looking to develop and grow their business.
Ben Ward, Founder, Supergonk
We are looking to recruit 10-15 diverse businesses for each programme, with a total of up to 45 participants across the three programmes. Applicants must demonstrate that their work in some way promotes the art, creativity and storytelling power of game making.
Participants will attend workshops each, delivered remotely between September 2022 and March 2023. Dependant on COVID-19 developments, we aim to also organise in-person meet-ups around wider game industry events, for the cohort to network with each other and some of the programme’s speakers.
In Games Scale Up, participants who join the cohort will:
On Foundations for Game Studios, participants will take part in expert led workshops on topics such as:
On Foundations for Creative Tech & Services, participants will take part in expert-led workshops on topics such as:
All participants will receive a number of templates (such as cashflow forecasting and profit & loss templates) that will be useful, tailored for a game studio as well as access to Ukie and Creative Enterprise-specific perks including access to AWS credits.
Delivery for all core workshops is fully online, complemented by a number of in-person events organised around game industry events such as:
The Games programmes specifically look to support developers, publishers or support services, who can demonstrate that their work in some way promotes the art, creativity and storytelling power of game making and who have the potential and ambition to scale their business.
Your business must be based in the English regions outside the M25. Thanks to partnerships with InGAME and Northern Ireland Screen, we are also able to accept applications from businesses based in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Some of the areas that we will consider while assessing the applications are:
Rob Hewson, Huey Games
The Games Scale Up programme is specifically looking to support developers, publishers or support services who have had some recent, proven success, who can demonstrate that their work in some way promotes the art, creativity and storytelling power of game making and who have the potential and ambition to scale their business.
The Foundations for Game Studios programme is specifically looking to support 10-15 early stage game developers looking to become sustainable and have not yet released a game grow their business and financial knowledge and find partners to fund and take their game to market.
The Foundations for Game Creative Tech & Services programme is specifically looking to support early-stage businesses who are creating technology or a service whose main purpose is to support games and other screen industry companies. Services and tech include, but are not limited to: Marketing, Recruitment, Localisation, Quality Assurance, PR, Co-development studios, Technology companies, Trailer production companies, etc., but at least a portion of the business' client base needs to be in the games industry.
You are required to fill in an application at these links. We also accept audio-only and video applications:
If you are unsure which programme suits you best, you can book a call with the Creative Enterprise team here, to explore your options. We highly encourage you to look at the application forms by starting an applications before having your call.
