VIDEO GAMES

The gaming sector now accounts for more than half of the UK’s entire entertainment market, making it more lucrative than video and music combined.

Five UK companies received a total of €740,000 to potentially contribute to this upward trend in 2019 and 2020, 61% of this total was awarded to companies based in Northern Ireland.

COMPANY Terahard Studios Outsider Games Italic Pig Brain and Nerd The Weather Factory UK NATION PROJECT TITLE (PROJECT TYPE) 2019 AMOUNT € 2020 AMOUNT € England Northern Ireland Paranoia Tax-Force 150,000 140,000

Northern Ireland Quest Quest:The Quest for Quests Northern Ireland Hortalius England Book of Hours 150,000 150,000 150,000

290,000 450,000

Over the seven years of Creative Europe (2014 – 2020), 19 grants have been awarded to 15 UK companies through this scheme, totalling €2,511,332. This equates to 10% of the total funding available Europe-wide and puts the UK as the second highest beneficiary of the scheme after Germany.

Little Orpheus is a technicolour side-scrolling adventure game inspired by classic movies like Flash Gordon, Sinbad and The Land that Time Forgot and delivered in eight bite-size, commute-friendly episodes. BAFTA-winning, Brighton-based developers The Chinese Room (now part of Sumo Digital) received early development funding for the game in 2017 which was released on Apple Arcade in June 2020.

“The grant allowed us to undertake early concept and development work on Little Orpheus, both in terms of testing gameplay and fleshing out the world and story. It’s a really important initiative for smaller companies particularly, to support the risky business of getting new ideas off the ground”

Dan Pinchbeck, The Chinese Room