The Guildford.Games Festival backed by EM3, proved to be a sell-out success

Creativity and technical excellence were showcased with the return of the Guildford.Games Festival, sponsored in part by Enterprise M3 LEP.

The sell-out event attracted around 2,000 visitors, who this year had an opportunity to meet in person and network with representatives from leading games studios based in and around Guildford at the town’s events and conference centre, G Live.

EM3 has been involved with the Guildford.Games Festival from the beginning with its inaugural event in 2019, and in 2020 launched a dedicated website, in partnership with Fireblade Software, to reach a wider audience for the internationally renowned games cluster.

This is part of our commitment to nurture and foster ongoing collaboration within the games cluster centred around Guildford, including helping to attract foreign direct investment opportunities in the region working with the Department of International Trade.

EM3 was among 30 exhibitors, which included a number of developers showing their latest games, such as Guildford-based Rogue Sun Games, who offered gamers the chance to play their magical toy soldier puzzle adventure Tin Hearts.

During the festival visitors listened to talks and panel discussions, and gained an insight from a raft of industry experts covering technical disciplines, business skills and the future direction of the games industry, as well as discovering the latest careers opportunities

A Digital Games Festival was also held the following day, with live streaming interviews from the industry’s foremost developers and business leaders, including ID@Azure, Playsport and nDreams, on YouTube and Twitch.

EM3 Head of Enterprise & Innovation, Chris Burchell, who attended this year’s event said: “There was a real buzz at the festival with plenty of new connections being made and networking opportunities. I especially liked seeing businesses talking to potential customers and meeting young people looking to get into this exciting industry.”

“It was also good to see such a strong cross section of local companies represented, including Supermassive and EA Games supporting the festival as well as some of the smaller studios.”

Chris added: “We are very proud to have supported this year’s Guildford.Games Festival and of course it’s great to be playing a key role in continuing to develop the fantastic games cluster based around Guildford.”

Lauran Carter, founding member of the Guildford.Games Festival and Head of Communications at Liquid Crimson, described this year’s event as a “huge success.”

She said: “I was blown away by the number of attendees, who were treated to three floors of exhibitors – from Guildford development studios to local businesses, and four rooms for talks, panels and presentations from a selection of talented and experienced speakers from in and around the games industry.”

“The Guildford.Games committee are extremely proud of how well received the event was, and hope to build on its success to continue to support the Guildford games industry and help more people get into games.”

“The feedback from attendees and exhibitors has been overwhelmingly positive, with one genuinely using the word ‘epic!’”