Ukie travelled to Brighton last Friday to join Caroline Lucas MP as she visited Unity Technologies.
The visit highlighted Brighton’s place as a bustling cluster for games development and provided an opportunity for Caroline to meet some of the fantastic talent working there. Home to nearly 80 games companies, Brighton is a major games development hub and hosts international organisations to small, vibrant start ups.
Unity Technologies, best known for their award-winning development tool the Unity engine, opened their doors to showcase their offices to Caroline, before she tried her hand at some interactive entertainment. This included a demo of Curiscope’s “Virtuali-Tee”, an educational immersive experience combining clothing and technology. The shirt, when linked to their app, uses Augmented Reality to reveal the inside of the body, teaching the user all about biology. She also tried some AR on the Magic Leap headset too.
After the fun and games, local games developers including FuturLab, Brightrock, and Hi-Rez sat down to discuss Brighton as a hub for games, the importance of the sector, and the difficulties the sector was facing. We also discussed the rise of esports and its rapidly growing success in the UK.
The day was a valuable experience for all involved and we hope that Caroline went away with a much greater understanding of the sector. This visit was part of our engagement with MPs of major game clusters up and down the UK. If you are interested in hosting an MP or Mayor, please get in touch with Grace