Game Republic’s Jamie Sefton joined Alison Lacy (Radical Forge), Stefan Lampinen (Game Advisor) and Richard Wormwell (Dock10) at Bloom 2025 hosted by Baltic Creative CIC in Liverpool for a panel exploring synergies between film, TV and games and the future of collaboration. There were so many great insights and examples of synergies, but here are a few of the thoughts shared at the event that we managed to capture…
Stefan – How do you view current collaboration between TV and games?
Jamie – When I first joined Game Republic in 2008 – it was part of Screen Yorkshire, the screen agency. So we had a little bit of collaboration between the TV and games in kind of things like screenwriting, there was a little bit about licensing film TV properties for games, but that was kind of it really back in those days, and we were very much in our silos at that point.
Now, it’s changed dramatically. We share tech now with film TV with unreal engine, with virtual production. We’ ve got games companies in our network that doing pre-vis and VFX for Hollywood, we’ve got Netflix who we were always wondering who was going to be the Netflix for games turns out it was Netflix! So they’ve got their own games store now, there’s lots more crossover. We’ve seen the dramatic kind of increase of games to TV licenses with, you know The Last of Us and Fallout and Super Mario Bros movie, one of the biggest animations of all time. There’s lots of stuff happening with licensing for games as well. Draw & Code right in Liverpool did the Taskmaster VR game. There’s tons and tons more crossover happening and I think that’s really exciting. I think for creative industries, we’ve come out of our silos a little bit more.
Stefan – I’ve always been impressed about the film and TV in UK and I think the UK is leading in narrative. I think games have something to learn?
Alison – Yeah, I think that’s a fair assessment. The game’s industry is only about 40 years old, I would say. So, we’re still quite young as a sector and we’ve not necessarily always been seen as a positive use of a person’s time. And we’re still struggling with that hangover. So whereas film and TV is widely respected, and funded in all sorts of different ways through governments for a long time, globally, we’ve always been a bit on the outside and we kind of like being on the outside a little bit. But we need to start thinking differently because I think audiences now don’t put their entertainment into these sector boxes that we do. They’re just consuming entertainment and they are increasingly less interested in the platform, even. We need to start thinking a bit more like that. Why do we watch TV? Why do we go to the cinema? Why do we go to an art gallery? Why do we play a video game? We’re looking for experiences, we’re looking to laugh, cry, escape reality or learn something, and we’re choosing and we’ve got all these options.
If we as creatives need to start thinking less about the platform we are on, and more about our audience, who wants to feel something, basically, and to pivot. I would like to see us to start talking to each other, because film, directors and there’s incredible TV producers who understand how to communicate with audiences so well, they’ve refined that skill over so long. and I feel in games we can start to tap into that.
Stefan – That’s a good point about speaking with TV producers and other creative industries. Does the TV and broadcast industry want to move more into games and reflect the change in the audience?
Richard – Audience change is the big shift really. The millennial audience are the first digital native audience that has grown up with social media with social platforms, touchscreens, mobile phones, interactive television and twitch and things like this. That’s the audience we are trying to get to.
So how do we make content or think about content and creation for that audience and where are those audiences sitting, and how do we find the right IPs and be able to deliver the content across to all platforms? I think that’s one of the key things that we’re really interested in. It’s a slow progress, you know, I want to stay where primarily TV, we’ve been doing scripts for TV, and I’ve been in that set for 25 / 30 years. and that’s primarily what we’re doing in the studio business, but where is that crossover? Bit of strategy into 2D into 3D environments, how do we track talent – changing from passive broadcast experience to interactive.
Jamie – What frustrates me that certainly the BBC should be representing games because there’s millions of people playing games and there’s literally no programmes about games at all. It just irritates me. But we don’t actually need it because we have YouTube and Twitch and all these new platforms where you just, you know, billions of people watching games being played. And it’s like, I think that’s where mainstream TV has kind of missed out actually. And I think that you’re right that you are kind of looking at the audience because they moved off traditional TV onto watching Twitch and actively interacting with the platforms.
Stefan – Do you think we will see interactive TV shows around the metaverse or the Fortnite ecosystem in in the future?
Richard – yes, we’re already have conversations with this. Again it goes back to the audience. It’s like how can they get those audiences and how they create on turn that into multiplatform. So, the sort of multiverse things do exist and all we’re out there, we’re not waiting to discover what it is. Roblox, Fortnite or Minecraft all those of platforms are really the sort of first sort of proper sort of multiverse experiences and how can you start to attach different IP to that?
Stefan – like a flywheel…
Alison – I think I would just add that whilst we’re talking about how it currently is, so much of our audience are playing the same six to eight games. And we could look at the cinema landscape and say the same thing – we are seeing sequel after sequel. The same IP being rolled out over and over again. And I have to think that this is partially perhaps totally caused by how we’re funded creative ideas and really interesting creative content isn’t going to come out of the minds of venture capitalists. But they are currently in control of all of the mainstream creative media that you will see through games in particular, but also through cinema.
Stefan – What about the skills agenda?
Alison – I think it’s going to continue to converge more and more as time goes on – and the interesting thing about skills is that it’s hard for us to predict the technical skills we might need because it’s changing all the time. So actually, I think the best bet is to focus on our understanding that we make great creative content in teams together. The better you are at working with others, the better you’re going to do – regardless of what sector you’re in. So, yes, we need to talk to each other more as sectors, we need to share our technologies more. We need to work together more, we need to be good at working together and we need to prepare young people for the fact that they might start out doing one thing, but they might end up doing 15 other things after that. So, the foundational skills and almost a kind of how do we teach the resilience or an acceptance that this is a high paced constantly changing sector and creative sectors and to be cool with that, be comfortable with that, and that’s difficult. But I think that’s how we’ll arm ourselves with this ability to adapt, to push the boundaries, because that’s how we’ll make world leading content.
Jamie – one of the things that Game Republic is just passionate about is getting people to realise in the North what we have. We are about to run a games weekend in Wakefield. We’re having game talks, it’s free to the public, and it’s basically to talk to parents, to say, look, we’ve got an amazing industry here and to kids, you know, you can have a brilliant career here in the North. 55% of games companies are based outside London and the south-east, which compared with other creative industries like film, is really unique. You really don’t have to be in London anymore now. We also focus on “insourcing” – basically we work with our members to work with other members in our network across The North, so we keep all the wealth and everything within the region, and we help each other. When times are tough and it’s been very tough in the industry the last a couple of years, we’ve got companies like Radical Forge that reach out to companies that are struggling and help them and give them work, and I just think it’s amazing and that’s the community that we have in the North. We help each other. We talk to each other. We care about the industry that we’ve got here because we think it’s brilliant. We think this is the best place to make games and we’re just very passionate about it. We just want to get that message across to people that, you know, you don’t have to go elsewhere. Why would you?
Alison – Yeah, and just to speak to the point that it has been quite has been quite tough and I think it remains quite tough, but this is the time when the best of innovation can emerge. It’s about bringing a little bit more professionalism in so that it supports us because we’re not being a very sustainable industry.
We keep going up and down, losing amazing staff and then it’s great when new things emerge from that and all for that, but we’ve also got to be a little bit more mindful and sensible that if you’re going to retain your talent, they just want to really good place to work, and they want to know that they’ve got a future and they don’t have to worry that they’re going to lose their job. And they want to live in a great place, so the economic improvement of our regions is really important. It’s no good sucking up all the talent, as an investor, and then when things get a bit tough, you shut it down, you move away. We’re here for the long term, and we want to actually have an impact on the local communities. We want to be a lever for social mobility, we want to be truly inclusive because by doing that we’re going to get these amazing creative stories and storytellers and viewpoints and perspectives on the world which help us be more empathetic to each other.
So being good business leaders, working on business as well as we can, getting the support and investment that we need from the places other industries get it, and taking some responsibility, which is what we’re trying to do in game changers, which is a group of over game developers in Liverpool City Region getting together with the local authority, and with other interesting parties to think about how do we take some responsibility for the skills issues we have? You mentioned young talent coming into the industry in that. That is where the focus usually is, but actually there’s some statistics out there saying that about half of the creative sector doesn’t provide any training for its staff. They just expect people to figure this out. We expect them to come to us with all the skills and we expect them to deliver our projects and do a great job and figure it all out for themselves. and that’s not sensible.
Stefan – What would you say about generative AI. I think it is incorrectly seen as a threat to people, but I think that we’ve got some good examples of ethical AI?
Jamie – we’ve got company that sprung out of the University of York called Pixel Research and they helped Revolution Software with Broken Sword Reforged – upscaling their art to 4K using AI and they used it with the assets of Revolution, so it didn’t go out to the Internet and grab people’s artwork for nothing. So that’s a good example – they’re very passionate about ethical AI. They don’t want to be going out and stealing people’s work. We need to protect creators and not have a Government that would just hand over all the creative assets and things from our brilliant creators to AI companies. Why would we do that? You know, we should be protecting what we create. So we just have to be careful about how we use generative AI, but I think like anything else it could be a good tool, but I can see that the audience doesn’t particularly like AI generated stuff. On Steam they make developers show on the platform which games have been using AI, and some choose not to buy games that use it. I think that we have to be very careful because, you know, we have amazing creative people and we don’t want to put them out of jobs.
Stefan – What do you enjoy most in your current work?
Richard – I just like working with the team and building the team and I focus on innovation. So looking at new technologies and how that can be deployed and the excitement of, you know, finishing something really complicated. Working on really complicated technology that you and the team put together and you get some amazing output from it.
Jamie – Yeah, I mean, the games industry is enormous fun. You could probably make two, three times more if you’re in banking, but it’s just more fun in games. It’s the people that is the reason why I’m still here after like 20 odd years because they’re just wonderful creative individuals and teams and I get a buzz out seeing new games companies get their games signed. We had an event last November – GaMaYo. We had like 50 new games right across the north and a couple of those games were signed by publishers as a result of our event, and to get that news, I was just so chuffed – it’s just brilliant. And those wins are just so exciting and that’s the reason and that’s why I get out of bed in the morning is to help our companies and individuals have success. I love it.
Alison – it is about teams for me 100%. My first job in the games industry was as a producer and I didn’t know anything about how games were made. It looked like there was like maybe some fairy dust that got sprinkled over something. So the first time I sat and observed really highly skilled but very diverse ways of thinking being mashed together to try to solve the problem where there was a real need to solve that problem really quickly and as efficiently as possible and people had completely different ideas about what was important and how to achieve it and sitting together and figuring out and just seeing how the people’s brains work differently – it is never not fascinating to me.
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