MediaCity to be home to £1m video gaming centre

SALFORD’S MediaCity is to become to home to a £1m centre for the video games industry, the government has announced.

The Games Centre, which the government wants to be a ‘centre of excellence’ for the industry, will help drive creativity, innovation, product development and skills in the industry, it said.

It will be based within the Media Enterprise Centre at MediaCity and use high speed video conferencing and file-sharing capacity.

The centre will be linked to a second £2.5m gaming centre at Abertay University in Dundee, which will aim to boost links between higher education and the video games industry.

In the first three years, the two centres aim to create 30 new companies, assist 80 others, stimulate 400 new jobs and build the skills of a further 300 workers.

Steven Broomhead, chief executive of the NWDA, said: “I am delighted that the Government has recognised the role of games in driving the creative economy. We have been working alongside industry partners to get more support centrally from government and we are delighted that this support has come through today.

“The games centre of excellence, based within the Media Enterprise Centre, will help small companies to get their ideas in front of publishers and distributors in a new way and open up new market opportunities. By utilising the NorthernNet infrastructure, which is now live with bureaus across the North, we can really spread the benefits of MediaCityUK across the entire North of England.”

Funding for the centres will come from the Government’s Strategic Investment Fund, which was set up to back business in new growth sectors.