BFI Video Games Day 2 – highlights

BFI Video Games Day 2 begins – Anna Mansi, Head of Certification

Following the success of the BFI Video Games Day 2014, the Certification Unit at the BFI hosted their second Video Games Day in Nottingham in partnership with Creative England and as part of the Game City Festival organised by the National Video Games Arcade (NVA).

Jonathan Smith, Co-founder of the NVA, opening keynote

We opened with a keynote speech from Jonathan Smith from the National Videogame Arcade.

Our first panel was an overview of the video games tax relief ‘one year on’ with:

Chair — Anna Mansi, Head of Certification, BFI
Moses Nyachae, Partner Film & Television, Saffery Champness
Des Ryan, HMRC Policy Adviser
Jackie McComish, HMRC Manchester Creative Industries Unit

Video Games Tax Relief – One Year On panel discussion

This was a great opportunity for delegates to get a recap of the Video Games Tax Relief, the Video Games Cultural Test and ask questions about how to qualify.

The second session was hosted by Creative England with case studies from video game developers Mad Fellows and Flix Interactive, chaired by Jaspal Sohal from Creative England.

Creative England case studies speech

After a networking lunch and 1-2-1 sessions with the Certification Unit, we followed up with a panel discussion on the theme of love, as part of the BFI’s Love season. Rhidian Davis of the BFI hosted the panel and was joined by BFI Board governor Charles Cecil MBE of Revolution Software and Aoife Wilson from Eurogamer, to discuss love in Video Games and Film and how the two can learn from each other. The panel also included a call out to twitter asking the audience to tweet their favourite ‘LOVE’ video game, leading to a discussion on the different relationships characters have within games and with the gamers themselves.

LOVE panel discussion

We were then given an update on the video games industry with the latest statistics from Alex Tosta of the BFI Research & Statistics Unit that showed that the Video Games industry is a huge market and only set to get bigger.

Access to Finance panel discussion

Our next panel was ‘Access to Finance’, chaired by UKIE’s Dr Jo Twist and joined by Carl Jones (Cloud Imperium Games), Francesca Walker (Creative Europe), Ella Waving (Creative England) and Noirin Carmody (Co-Founder, Revolution Software) The panel discussed successful crowd funding and ways to access Creative Europe and Creative England funding. After a short break our final presentation was on Video Games ‘Skills and Education’ chaired by Richard Wilson from TIGA and joined by Marcia Deakin (NEXT Gen Skills Academy), Jon Weinbren (NFTS) and Dan Lawson (Creative Skillset).

Skills & Education panel discussion

The day ended with networking drinks and developer demos at the National Videogame Arcade.

Another huge thank you to everyone who attended the day and to those who contributed to make it such an informative and successful event.