Guildford Games Festival
Nik Turner joins the Education Panel at the Guildford Games Festival. Guildford.Games is a grass roots, community initiative from a team of people actively involved in the Guildford games industry. The formal Guildford.Games Limited organisation was established in 2022 to facilitate our ambitious aims to support the industry in the area. It is a non-profit-making entity with all funds raised from sponsorship or other activities being invested back into our initiatives. To watch the panel click here.
The Guildford game-dev community has existed for decades, long before the formalisation of the Guildford.Games organisation. Guildford.Games Ltd builds on the momentum established by both members of the committee and passionate community contributors and organisations across the region.
Whilst commercial games activity can be retraced on the Guildford Games Timelinepage, here is a brief summary of some of the preceding (and current) community initiatives and individual contributors that have helped lay the foundations of such a strong and active geographical games hub:
One of the first larger-scale events in recent Guildford games industry history is G3 Futures. Started in 2015 G3 was a conference that ran for four years and was organised as a collaboration between Charles Russell Speechlys, Ukie and the University of Surrey. All of these organisations are still involved with Guildford.Games either directly or through regular support of our events.
As a continuation of this initiative Sam Read, was appointed as Games Industry Partnerships Manager at the University of Surrey and subsequently as Games sector specialist for Enterpise M3. During this tenure Sam was instrumental in the formation of the Guildford.Games organisation that exists today. From enabling the creation of the website and much of the associated assets and content, support for the first ever Guildford.Games festival and assistance with the huge success that has been the Guildford.Games Steam sale – Sam was one of the original founders and continues to be a valued supporter of Guildford.Games.
Fellow founders of Guildford.Games, Dan Thomas and Jason Lord have been long-time collaborators on a quarterly networking event, Guildford Gamedev Drinks, held at Guildford Town centre favourite venue, Pews bar. This event regularly sees over 200 local games professionals meeting up to socialise and network and is always a fantastic event that continues now under the Guildford.Games initiative.
Discussion between Sam Read, Dan Thomas, Jason Lord and Sam Collins from Ukie led to the first Guildford.Games festival in 2019 and the subsequent recent formation of Guildford.Games limited. With support from Charles Russell Speechlys, Rebecca Burford was appointed as a co-founder member of the organisation and alongside significant contributions Lauran Carter has also been appointed.
