Meeting of the Parliament 03 February 2026 [Draft]
I fully agree with my colleague. There is a great partnership between Chris van der Kuyl and his business partner, Paddy Burns. The willingness to invest in their communities in East Lothian and Dundee and to support jobs shows the potential for setting up smaller clusters of studios that can support high-value jobs in diverse parts of our country.
A critical mass can be required and can help to create a clustering effect, and our universities play an instrumental part in that. An example of that is the InGAME project that is run by Abertay University—again, in Dundee—along with the University of Dundee and the University of St Andrews. It has upskilled thousands of people who are now working in the sector. In 2023, the economic analysis for InGAME showed that it was expected to generate a total of £84.7 million of gross value added over 10 years, supporting around 175 jobs. It is an example of strategic investments that help to grow our economy.
It is the tangible impact of those innovative studios, which comes in the form of investment, high-value jobs and supply chains, that attracts people to Dundee and the wider region. The question must now be how we can rapidly expand the industry, building on our own track record of innovation.
Finland offers a fine example of what can be achieved by having a focus on scaling appropriately. It has built a £2.5 billion mobile gaming industry from the legacy of Nokia and hits such as Angry Birds.
I want to touch briefly on issues that have arisen recently. Members will be aware of some growing concerns about precarious work and reports of anti-trade union actions and negative working practices in the sector. It would be remiss of me not to mention that tonight, given that members will have been contacted in that regard. It is right that we recognise the challenges that those kinds of cultures and practices pose for the health of workers and the success of the sector as a whole. Governments should carefully consider how to ensure that workers are protected, that talent is nurtured and that people’s right to organise is protected in this industry and everywhere else.
I am proud to champion the games industry in Dundee and Scotland. It provides young people with real opportunities for the future that draw on our city’s proud history in the sector and look with hope towards the future of the world’s largest entertainment industry. There are new studios, new games and innovations happening all the time. I am sure that we will hear about some of them tonight from other members. Future generations can credibly look forward to being a part of all that. That is why the action plan is important. It sets a clear path for Dundee and the wider Scottish economy to capitalise on the huge opportunity in front of us. At the launch of the plan at Codebase, in Edinburgh, Mark Logan rightly challenged all of us to think about how we can move beyond our pioneering games history and write new stories of success for our national future.
I will conclude by quoting from Marx—not Karl Marx, but Marx Watanabe, a character in a wonderful novel by Gabrielle Zivine on finding purpose in work and the joy of gaming. He says:
“What is a game? It’s tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth”.
Therein lies our chance of building something ever more brilliant for Scotland.