This August the Ukie Worldwide campaign covered sponsored content in consumer press and the all-important Gamescom – but it kicked off at the start of the month with a fantastic series of virtual trade missions, which are all available to watch on our YouTube channel. Let’s take a look back at some of the highlights.
Selling games into China – 2nd August – Watch here
Mingxuan Chen, Market Analyst at Newzoo, began the session with a talk that outlined the Chinese game market in numbers, player behaviours and key market trends. The number one largest market by game revenues, boasting an online population of 946.5M and 742.2M players, he pointed out that mobile games actually take up the largest revenue share in the Chinese games market.
Glenn Wang, Asia Publishing Director at Curve Games, briefly touched on the impact of regulation on the Chinese market before presenting a talk on publishing in China, detailing the platforms and operations available and methods of getting your game on top via Steam.
This brought us nicely into the next talk from Dave Clark, Arcus Key’s Global Client Director on promoting games in China by understanding the Chinese media landscape and the challenges as well as opportunities faced by overseas developers attempting to sell their games into China.
The session finished with a panel discussion featuring all speakers as well as Ukie board member Li Ma, UK & Ireland Director at Tencent.
Collaborating with the African games market – 3rd August – Watch here
The session on collaborating with the African games market was co-hosted by Rex Bowden of Africa Games Week. He gave an outline of the session before handing over to Nick Hall, CFO of RenderHeads, who gave an overview of the African continent and consumer profile, with insights into the kinds of studios trading at present.
Sidick Bakayoko of Côte d'Ivoire-based esport events and games promotion company Paradise Game and Hugo Obi of the Nigerian studio Maliyo Games both shared their experiences of setting up their respective companies, including lessons learned and hopes for the future. The session then moved into a panel discussion chaired by Rex Bowden on the consumer market, the landscape of playing games and continent-wide vs. local channels for games promotion.
Why the UK is the best place for your games company – 5th August – Watch here
Nigel Jones from the Department for International Trade led the session with an overview of DIT and the specific details of what DIT does for UK games businesses and beyond. This included insights into upcoming DIT incentives, programmes, and events.
Next Mark Phillips, a partner at leading game and entertainment-focused law firm Harbottle and Lewis explained the process of setting up in the UK, talking through the routes available to international companies and the tax landscape – with a particular focus on how to claim and recover VGTR.
The session ended with a panel discussion chaired by Sam Collins, featuring Ranjani Natarajan, COO of Robot Teddy; Jon Rissik, CEO of Dovetail Games and Mark South, COO of Double Eleven. Speakers defined how they see the games industry in the UK, their experiences of setting up here including sourcing talent, the diverse regions of the UK and the most exciting elements of the games industry as it currently exits.