Hansard

I thank Michael Marra for securing the debate and for highlighting the publication of “Level Up Scotland: A National Action Plan for the Scottish Games Sector”. I congratulate him and Clare Adamson, along with other colleagues, on being great champions of the games sector in the Parliament. I thank all colleagues for their contributions to the debate.

I recognise the great work of, and pay tribute to, Brian Baglow, who has been an invaluable advocate for the sector. He has helped me, my officials and the Government more widely to gain an even clearer understanding of the cultural, economic and social contributions that games make to Scotland. I remember that, when Shona Robison and I, on behalf of the Government, met him and a number of senior and experienced representatives of the games sector in the Parliament in 2023, the idea emerged of his carrying out work to produce an industry-led games plan for Scotland, which he has now published.

As the plan says, and as many members have said, Scotland has played a truly formative role in global video game culture. Landmark titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings, which have been often mentioned by members in the debate and were both born in Dundee, have shaped entire games genres and have reached hundreds of millions of players worldwide.

There have also been other contributions, particularly in education. As members have mentioned, Abertay University, which I visited a few months ago for the umpteenth time, established the world’s first dedicated video game degree back in 1997, and it is consistently ranked among the top universities globally for video game design by the Princeton Review.

That pioneering spirit has cemented Scotland’s international reputation as a place where creativity meets cutting-edge technology, as many members have said, and that legacy continues today. We have 135 computer games enterprises in Scotland, which represents an 800 per cent increase since 2010, when there were 15. Some of the most successful and influential games in the world are still being developed here.

As many members have said, the sector covers all parts of Scotland. For example, a couple of games companies in Elgin, on my doorstep—Code Wizards and Hunted Cow—have produced chart-topping games, so I know that, as well as Dundee, which has led the way and blazed the trail, other parts of the country are benefiting from our growing games sector.

It is anticipated that the new title in the Grand Theft Auto franchise—the most iconic games franchise—will have the biggest launch in entertainment history, and more than 300 million copies of Minecraft have been sold worldwide. Those are both household names. I associate myself with Michael Marra’s comments in that respect. I feel that I should own shares in those titles, given my two sons’ history of playing video games and the amount of Lochhead investment that has gone into those games over the years.

I remember that, when I was a teenager, one of my friends got a ZX80. I did not own one of them, but I remember seeing it—now I am showing my age. A couple of years after that, I got a ZX Spectrum, and I got addicted to Jet Set Willy, Match Point, Deathchase, Manic Miner and a number of other games. It was actually only a few years ago that I learned that the ZX Spectrum was manufactured in Dundee, and that it led to the emergence from that city of the games industry that is now a national phenomenon. Chris Van Der Kuyl and Paddy Burns, who are well-known figures from Dundee in the games sector and who are behind some of its big titles, told me how it led to coding among local young people and schoolchildren, and others who worked at Timex, and, in turn, to where we are today. It is a fantastic legacy and a great story that we should tell the rest of the world over and over again.

From indie developers and co-working hubs to globally recognised studios, our games community runs the gamut of an entire country. A really important point to make about the timeliness of the plan’s publication, and a theme that many members have touched on, is that gaming technology is all about innovation and cutting-edge technology. It is not just about games; the technology is being used by prosthetics companies and by the military. It is also incredibly important to healthcare—and I am talking not just about the games and apps that are being developed by the games sector to promote healthy living and to help people with their health, but about the gaming technology used by surgeons. It is also being used in finance. Indeed, a company in my constituency told me that it has produced a banking app, so the financial sector is benefiting from games technology, too. Therefore, I agree with the thrust of many people’s contributions, which is that we have to recognise that that is a nationally valuable source of innovation in Scotland and it affects many different parts of our economy, not just the games sector. It is at the cutting edge of innovation.

In my final couple of minutes, I should mention that the Government has been supporting the games sector; indeed, we have stepped up our support for it in recent years. Our ecosystem fund has supported Scottish games week, which has shone a spotlight on the sector’s remarkable strength and diversity. That very point was made and recognised in the members’ business debate on this subject back in 2023.

A few months ago, as part of our Techscaler programme, we took a cohort of 10 games start-up companies out to Japan and gave them the opportunity to meet and learn from some truly influential global leaders, and to attend the Osaka world expo. I was there as minister, helping to lead that delegation of games companies from Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh and elsewhere, and it was fantastic to see them taking their products, ideas and vision to the important—and massive—Japanese games market.

Just a few months ago—in September—we were thrilled to host the prestigious DICE Europe conference in Edinburgh. We took a leading role in shaping the conference and the satellite activities, in showcasing all that Scotland has to offer and in welcoming the major global companies that attended. Those companies included Nintendo, whose chief executive I met a couple of times—it was great to talk to him about what was happening in the games sector in Scotland—as well as Xbox and Epic Games, among others.