I’m talking to Molyneux in his office in Guildford, Surrey – which has become a hub for the UK gaming industry since he and a handful of developers set up Bullfrog Productions there in 1987.<\/p>\n
Now nearly 30 companies, including parts of major studios like EA and Ubisoft, call it home.<\/p>\n
He mentions another nearby studio – Hello Games, maker of the Bafta award-winning No Man’s Sky – as an example of how the UK has long had an edge when it comes to risk-taking and creativity in the industry.<\/p>\n
But he warns that position is under pressure, arguing that developers are struggling to compete against the likes of China which “can create games in a fraction of the time that we can” or the US with its “unbelievable resources”.<\/p>\n
Nick Poole, head of industry body UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie), said the sector was right to highlight global competitiveness, but added the UK remains “one of the world’s true creative powerhouses for video games”.<\/p>\n
“With the right support we can build on our strengths to attract investment, back new talent and help more studios scale,” he said.<\/p>\n
What needs to change, according to Molyneux?<\/p>\n
“The first thing is, and this is slowly changing, is the appreciation that games are not just about shooting and killing,” he says.<\/p>\n
“They are really incredible ways for people to explore their own creativity. And I think at a government level and almost a population level, to really celebrate that would help with everything.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’m talking to Molyneux in his office in Guildford, Surrey – which has become a hub for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-543863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}