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NE students show their love for games

Schoolchildren and sixth-form students from throughout Tyneside found out what life would be like working in the world of videogames development last week as part of an initiative to sow the seeds for the next generation of North Eastern game makers. During Codeworks GameHorizon’s I Love Games on Valentine’s Day at Northumbria University, a group of 14- to 18-year-olds found out about life in the games industry directly from some of the North East’s leading developers - the makers of chart-toppers such as The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the Driver series, and Big Mutha Truckers.

The event, which was sponsored by Sony PlayStation, included employer presentations from Eutechnyx, Reflections and Venom Games, as well as three workshops during which the students found out about how a videogame is made, and the pros and cons of working in the industry. The workshops also gave them the chance to try their hand at creating their own games.

Carri Cunliffe, manager of Codeworks GameHorizon, said: “Right now, the games industry as a whole is facing an ongoing recruitment crisis. There simply aren’t enough skilled staff around to fill the needs of the UK’s fast-growing games sector, and this applies to the North East as much as anywhere. “By targeting the grass-roots level in this way, initiatives like I Love Games will play an important role in steering the region towards the ideal situation where we not only retain staff, but also where we have a pipeline of fresh talent coming out for each company every year.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .