It was GDC time 17-21 March 2025, and Game Republic was again leading a Department for Business and Trade (DBT) mission along with trade association Ukie. The mission was based at Werqwise, a block from the GDC’s Moscone Center, and featured 80 UK games companies – including many from the North of England – taking part in business development meetings, meetings organised through Meet To Match, a DBT reception, an investor dinner and an evening to celebrate the UK games industry and the new upcoming mission to Japan.
Speaking about the event, Jamie Sefton, MD of Game Republic said “The general feeling at GDC was more positive than last year with more business and meetings taking place. While things are still tough, there are definitely opportunities for games companies with a new console launch approaching with Nintendo Switch 2 and publishers looking to sign games for 2026 and beyond. The spectrum of games from our trade mission studios was really impressive and it was great to see them getting a chance to pitch to global publishers and platform-holders. There was also much discussion about finance for games and there is clearly a trend towards more realistic and pragmatic budgets from investors and publishers.”
Game Republic, along with colleagues in DBT, created a programme of 26 business development meetings for our companies with publishers, platform-holders and investors such as ID@Xbox, Devolver, PlayStation, Akupara Games, Nintendo, London Venture Partners, Big Fan Games, Epic Games, Meta, LucasFilm, Big Fan Games, Xsolla, Devolver, Secret Mode, Discord, United Talent Agency, Valve, Unity and more. These consisted of hour-long informal meet-ups at Werqwise for introductions, Q&A and an opportunity for a one-to-one with the contact or contacts at the company, so attendees could pitch their company/games and swap contact details – apart from the Valve meeting, where we met at their San Francisco GDC meet-up to discuss bringing games to Steam.
As well as the business development meetings, DBT organised a special reception at the American Institute of Architects – the highlight of the week – where 200 specially invited guests enjoyed food, drinks and a visit from the UK Ambassador to the USA. Lord Peter Mandelson met with Game Republic, and also delivered a glowing speech about the games industry, suggesting a new game should be created called “British Ambassador” and also acknowledged both Ukie and Game Republic’s contributions to the trade mission.
Other events included a networking event on the Sunday night at Werqwise with pizza and briefings for the companies on the mission, an investor dinner by Ukie that invited games companies and publishers/investors to enjoy food and pitch projects, and a fireside chat with Japan trade mission announcement, that included info on the upcoming DBT 2025 trip to indie games event BitSummit in Kyoto and the Osaka Expo 2025 in July.
Also, Game Republic had the opportunity to visit other events such as Day of the Devs (a large indie game expo and meet-up) and of course the main GDC conference, where we visited the main expo, and met with games publishers, investors, games journalists and games companies to promote the region’s industry and also invite guests to future Game Republic events.
Last year the trade mission resulted in creating more than £80m of trade for the companies attending – we’re hoping we can break this fantastic figure in 2025. Altogether this was a very successful mission for DBT, Ukie and Game Republic and many of our members benefited from the meetings and opportunities on the mission, including Panda Cat Games, Dink, Skyhook Games, CherryPop Games, PitStop Productions, Tanglewood Games, Airship Interactive, Northwave, Hero Inc, Cooperative Innovations, BeamXR, Other Things, Curve Games and PQube. We look forward to more Game Republic-led trade missions in the future, including GDC 2026!
