Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to improve access to investment and funding for video game developers in the UK.

The Government is committed to supporting the growth of the UK’s video games sector as part of the upcoming creative industries sector plan, having identified the creative industries as one of eight priority sectors in the industrial strategy.

We recognise the challenges faced by the video games sector, and the wider creative industries, when it comes to accessing finance. These challenges are outlined in the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre 2024 report on Growth Finance for the Creative Industries.

To address these issues at an early stage, the Government has announced £5.5 million funding for the UK Games Fund (UKGF) for 2025/26, which will provide grants to early-stage studios across the UK to develop prototypes and new intellectual property, and run development programmes for new graduates. Previous independent evaluation found that UKGF programmes served a well-established and identifiable gap within the sector – the provision of early stage funding and support to companies and teams seeking to develop video games. DCMS has commissioned a further independent evaluation of the UKGF which will be published in due course.

Additionally, video games companies can benefit from Video Games Expenditure Credit, the UK Global Screen Fund, and access support from the Create Growth Programme.

In January 2025 we announced that the British Business Bank will increase its support for the creative industries, including video games, as an area of high growth potential as part of the Industrial Strategy. Further detail will be set out in the Creative Industries Sector Plan, to be published in the coming months.