The Bafta Games Awards take place later, celebrating the achievements of global video game developers and British studios alike. This year smash-hit role-playing game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 looks set to sweep the board with 12 nominations in total. Made in France, the game's developers, Sandfall Interactive, have twice been publicly praised by President Emmanuel Macron, and even honoured by the country's Ministry of Culture.
But do video games get the same recognition in the UK? Hugely popular series including Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider, Lego: Star Wars and Football Manager were made in Britain. Some in the industry would argue that, despite their cultural and economic contributions, games aren't placed on the same pedestal as other creative sectors.
According to industry body UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE), Britain's video game industry was worth £8.76bn in 2025 - an increase of 7.4% on the year before. They said this was made up of spending on: At the same time, the global video games industry has endured one of its biggest periods of uncertainty in recent years with thousands of developers losing jobs and studios closing. Alanah Pearce, who's worked as a video game writer, actress and journalist since starting her career in the industry in 2012, tells BBC News it's a "frustrating" situation.
While the industry is still "incredibly profitable", she says, it is struggling to attract investment in the same way it used to, especially with artificial intelligence (AI) swallowing up huge amounts of cash. "Most of the investors who are propping up the games industry have frankly fled to AI to a tremendous degree," says Pearce. "So because that's happened for a lot of our publicly traded companies, they're just very nervous to make anything that isn't almost guaranteed profit, which is very difficult.
"How do you even guarantee profit in this day and age?" Video game companies large and small are facing increased competition for people's attention, from social media platforms such as TikTok, AI apps and an ever-growing number of competing games being published. "As a result of that," says Pearce, "All the bigger companies, but it goes the whole way down to indies as well, just got scared and thus have been funding things a lot less, unfortunately." The UK games industry has also been hit by a lack of investment, with industry body TIGA recently warning it had seen a "record downturn" in employment and a "collapse" in the number of start-up companies. This week as part of the London Games Festival the government announced more details about a £28.5m games fund to support video game studios, with grants of £20,000 for new companies and up to £250,000 for those looking to expand.
Creative industries minster Ian Murray said the value of video games to the British economy "has been overlooked" for too long, and the government had "thrown its full support behind the sector". It's part of the Creative Industries Sector Plan, which will also offer £75m of grants for TV and film productions, plus up to £30m for "emerging UK music artists". Developer Adam Riches, from indie studio Robust Games, told BBC News the different levels of funding could be good news for companies like his.
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