Carry On, Continue — game over?
We’ve released a White Paper, come take a look
Six weeks ago the National Videogame Foundation announced the White Paper — ‘game over?’ — detailing strategies for videogame curation and exhibition. Joined by leaders in the industry and policymakers, NVF CEO Iain Simons and Prof. James Newman presented proposals for improved videogame creation, commissioning and maintenance processes. We were lucky enough to have Samira Ahmed host our panel of experts, all of whom were well placed to detail the videogame sector’s shortcomings. Aptly set in the British Film Institute in London, here’s what happened at the event.
Many points raised revolved around the crucial issue of underrepresentation of women and black and minority ethnic groups in the videogame industry. Diversity is not only an essential characteristic of a fair and equal industry, but it also engenders diversity of production and untold innovation; it’s a no brainer. This multiplicity also extends to creatives from fields outside the usual realms of videogames, like fine art, cinematography, sculpture, composition, poetry, musical theatre and countless others. Jessica Curry’s unique stance as a ‘non-gamer’ gave us masterpiece that is Dear Esther — this alone should be incentive to get more people like Jessica involved in games.
This is the crux of the Continue Network, collaboration and networking. These words are not mere jargon, but essential to the development and survival of the videogame industry. Over the remaining months of 2018, we will be hosting a number of events over the country intent on bringing the right people together — people like you. On April 20th Continue will be in Leeds, on July 3rd we’ll be back in London at the British Library, and on the 16th of August Edinburgh plays host to the conference. These events will culminate at a national summit in York, at a date in October yet to be confirmed.
As an extension of the National Videogame Arcade, this White Paper from the Continue Network also aims to broaden videogame literacy. The NVA already involves itself heavily in the teaching of such knowledge, manifestly through regular Pixelheads workshops and the recent StorySmash project. These both facilitate learning about videogames through play and creation, something we hope to extend through additional literacy programmes.
Our goals do not stop here though as, with the increasing digitisation of an industry which once relied heavily on hardware, videogames are in danger of being lost forever. The NVA site in Nottingham displays a significant number of ageing videogames which otherwise might have been lost. Preservation of videogames must be literal then, as the history of the games industry is rich in cultural heritage some may never have the chance to witness.
Of course, these proposals all require funding and support from the government and stakeholders, all of which are detailed in the final document which will shortly be released. The programme for the next Continue event will also be released shortly, until then why not check out some of our other content on the Medium page, visit our website or better yet come and visit the arcade!
