Scotland’s gaming industry levels up

The five-day video game conference took place over three Scottish cities

Scottish Games Week drew to a close today after hosting their second national event since a successful launch in 2022.

The five-day program was held at venues across Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee and showcased diversity and talent in Scottish gaming.

The week kicked off with a two-day industry industry conference in Edinburgh covering a wide variety of keynotes, talks, panels, and roundtables on hot topics within the creation, design and release of games globally.

Dundee held The Scottish Games Education Network Symposium on day three which is an interactive forum for all those involved in the games education sector.

Abertay University is home to one of the world’s oldest gaming courses making Dundee the perfect city to host the event on Wednesday.

Titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings were created in Dundee, putting Scottish gaming on the world stage.  

The event wrapped up today in Glasgow with More Than Games, a unique event designed to highlight and showcase the transformational power of games in our digital world- for people who do not make (or play) videogames.

‘Just magical’

Nazan Ünlütürk, Marketing Director of the Scottish Games Week, spoke of what it meant seeing the event come to life.

“Day one at the conference was my highlight.

“Seeing all the hard work that the team has put in come to fruition was just magical.

“What I love about our team is that each and every one of us is personally committed to supporting the mission of creating a platform for the Scottish gaming community to come together, celebrate successes, learn from challenges, and showcase talent.”

It is estimated that the Scottish video game industry contributes around 350 million to the Scottish economy annually.

The conference was an opportunity to build on the gaming ecosystem and to progress it further.

The aim this year was to celebrate diversity, talent and inclusion in the video game community and to learn from its challenges.

Jess Batey is a female gamer who says the industry can be very intimidating to get into for a woman.

“There’s a lot of men.” She said. “It feels like it’s difficult to stand out because people will either look at me and not give me the time of day or just brush me off.”

Miss Batey believes focusing on inclusion and diversity at events such as Scottish Video Game Week are a crucial step in the progression of gaming.

She said: “I think that is a positive step because you can’t force change it has to be a natural progression and if you go too quickly there will be a lot of outcry.

“So, I think that the small steps, just any progress at all is good progress.”

On Thursday Glasgow hosted The Scottish Gaming Awards to celebrate innovation and extraordinary talent.

The winners included;

Diversity Champion

Searra Leishman, Hyper Luminal Games

Community Spirit

Luci Holland

Rising Star

Rach Macpherson, Neon Hive

Art and Animation

Skye Tales- Puny Astronaut

Best Small-Budget Game

Alexander Tarvet- The Longest Walk

Best Large-Budget Game

Blazing Griffin- Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot- The London Case

For more information visit: https://gamesweek.scot/about/