Call for Applications: UK Games Fund 2023

Your Suitability

They expect to see strong applications from teams and solo developers with the following attributes.  Applicants should consider the following as a baseline regarding suitability for funding:

• You will have completed some early concept work and have either a proof-of-concept demo or other visual pre-production work, so that you can show your project in the best light with your pitch video.
• You will have a clear idea of what your unique selling point or other market differentiator is – being able to communicate this clearly will help build confidence in your project.
• You will have a development team, either as UK-based paid staff or UK-based contractors, that is either in place or is ready to come on board quickly if you are successful – being able to describe the specific attributes of your team helps to prove your overall development capability.
• Your team should normally have experience of professional game development.
• You should have done your research and have a clear idea of what the next steps are beyond the grant – who you will approach to fund the remainder of the project, how you will handle publishing, etc.
• You should be able to describe the future of your business, how the grant will provide a positive impact on your sustainability and growth as a studio, and what your vision is beyond this individual project.

Desirable Traits

• Business:
  • You are an established SME with at least one employee and PAYE registration in place (typically 3 – 10+ individuals, including contractors where applicable).
  • Your business is already growing and you have plans to grow towards larger projects, recruiting talent to do so.
  • Your company has been founded by at least one individual who enjoys business, speaks the language of business and is pushing your studio forward.
  • You are working with inclusivity/diversity and supporting different voices (e.g. the BFI guidance).
  • Your business is not dependent on grant funding and can demonstrate it is developing into a financially sustainable enterprise.
• Team:
  • If you are presently a solo developer, you have sufficient professional experience and a solid network of talented UK-based contractors ready to come on board quickly.
  • Your team may have one or more experienced/mentor-level team members in key positions who have developed and released games over several years.
  • You have plans to develop your own IP or move into the own-IP space from another relevant area of business.
  • You have access to an established business support network.
• Project:
  • You have a clear, evidenced and verified market opportunity, and you can demonstrate how you are going to ‘stand up to’ and ‘stand out from’ any competitors.
  • Your project has received positive feedback and confirmation from socials, games press, publishers, focus-groups, play testers, focus-testers, or public demonstration at games expos.
  • You have early interest from publishers and you have been asked to extend or improve on a prior demo with a real possibility of being signed.
  • The project is not wholly dependent on grant funding because you have other income streams / working capital / time resources.
  • Our funding focus is primarily on games for entertainment.

Funding Information

The maximum grant value available is £25,000, of which a maximum of £12,000 will be claimable between January and 31st March 2024 with the balance to be claimed by 31st August 2024.

Eligible Costs

• If awarded a grant from the UK Games Fund, portfolio companies may only claim for approved employment costs for UK-based employees and UK-based contractors declared on your application form.
• For the avoidance of doubt that means:
  • Gross pay costs of UK-domiciled employees paid through PAYE evidenced by payslips and bank statement entries.
  • Employers NI costs of UK domiciled employees paid through PAYE evidenced by remittance advice to HMRC and bank statement entries.
  • Detailed UK-domiciled contractor invoices exclusive of VAT (if you aren’t VAT registered you can claim the VAT element subject to agreeing with us and providing appropriate evidence) evidenced by invoice and bank statement entry showing payment.
  • They’ll expect employee and contractor charge-out rates to be consistent with industry norms and any inflated rates will require multi-year evidence of salary etc. rates.
  • No costs of any other nature will be approved. Including such costs in your application for grant money could result in negative scoring in your application.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligible applicants must meet the following criteria:

• Applications will only be accepted from registered UK-based companies.
• Companies must have fewer than 50 employees.
• The scale of development will be such that their support and grant will represent no more than 50% of the total costs of the project once it has been released.
• Your project must not include gambling elements or mechanisms which could be perceived as such, or any content that they deem to be potentially reputationally damaging (solely at our discretion).
• Games associated with emergent business models with little evidence of success are unlikely to be funded until that evidence base can be demonstrated.
• Your project can already be in development, although they don’t support projects that have already fully launched, and do not fund work carried out prior to the grant being offered.
• Projects following an open-development model with a live build available in a pre-release form will still be considered (but typically they don’t fund pure DLC development for a title already launched).

For more information, visit UK Games Talent and Finance.