UK launches £30 million games growth package for studios and festivals

The UK government’s latest games push is less about one splashy announcement and more about building a survival ladder for studios that are still trying to make it past their first project. The £30 million package splits into £28.5 million for the UK Games Fund and £1.5 million for the London Games Festival over three years, with support ranging from £20,000 entry grants to £250,000 expansion awards.

Applications for the new UK Games Fund support opened on 14 April, timed with the opening of the London Games Festival, which runs from 13 to 19 April and is now in its eleventh edition. The government said the package sits inside its Creative Industries Sector Plan and wider Modern Industrial Strategy, and that it is intended to strengthen investor partnerships and double private investment deals at the festival to £30 million a year.

The real significance is where the money lands. The Entry track is aimed at newly formed studios with limited track records, offering grants of up to £20,000. The Emergent track can back prototypes with up to £100,000, while the Expansion track goes as high as £250,000 to help complete projects and support studio growth. That makes this more than a branding exercise. It gives small teams a concrete route from proof-of-concept to something a publisher, investor or platform holder might actually back.

This is also a much bigger commitment than the previous round. In April 2024, the government awarded more than £3 million to 22 rising-star studios, with grants of up to £150,000, and said total UK Games Fund investment between 2022 and 2025 had reached £13.4 million. The new £28.5 million commitment marks a major jump in scale, and it arrives at a time when the government says the UK has more than 2,000 gaming companies employing tens of thousands of people in a market worth £8.8 billion a year.

DCMS pointed to British-built franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Fable, PowerWash Simulator, No Man’s Sky, Tomb Raider, Little Big Planet and Lego: Star Wars as evidence of the sector’s global reach. Ukie chief Nick Poole welcomed the package as a strong vote of confidence, saying targeted support across the development pipeline can help studios start, scale and stay globally competitive. London Games Festival director Michael French said the festival is designed to raise the UK market’s international profile and draw in investors and decision makers.

Beyond London, the government also set aside another £20 million for the Tay Cities region, covering Angus, Dundee, Fife and Perth and Kinross, to support local talent and creative technologies including games and virtual reality. Ukie said the package also coincided with the launch of the UK Esports Advisory Panel, a new forum meant to give ministers structured input from publishers, teams, events, grassroots and education. Taken together, the money is aimed at widening the runway from first prototype to studio scale-up, not just keeping the lights on.