Thanks for playing (with extended thank yous)
Some pictures and lots of gratitude.
On September 2nd, we locked the doors on the NVA in Nottingham for the last time.
For the past three and half years, we’ve worked to serve you all up fun, engagement, entertainment and something different about videogames. Now we’re moving up the road to Sheffield.
It’s really hard for us all to divorce what’s been an intensely personal journey from what the public, or bystanders at even a slightly greater distance from us might be feeling. I’m not going to apologise for it, but I am going to let you know that this is a fairly personal post. You’ve been warned…
I find it really tempting whenever I’m asked to write something about the NVA to immediately talk about the drama. I’m done talking about that for now. One day, I’ll write down what happened, but not today.
Instead, I wanted to do two things.
- Thank people.
- Share a couple of photographs that mean a lot to me.
Let’s do them in reverse order.
Look at the picture for a moment, then I’ll give you some context.It was taken just over a week before we opened, in March 2015.
I love this photograph. It sums everything that I love about the last four years and everything I love about our co-founder Jonathan Smith and the team that work here.
The man in the middle of the frame gesticulating is Jonathan. He’s talking about the key installation for the opening of the new National Videogame Arcade. It’s going to be the thing that people experience first as they enter the building. It’s going to be called ‘Mission Control’ and it’s going to be awesome.
It’s a game about how games are made. A two player experience that is customised by other visitors whilst its being played. In a really gentle way, Mission Control is going to show visitors to the NVA what games are made of, whilst they’re playing. They’ll be able to make pixel sprites live, mix sound, change gravity, configure this game in an infinite amount of ways. Next to them, Jonathan explains, will be a huge photo of Gene Krantz, an inspiration to the whole project.
The people listening to him say this are a group of teachers from the region. We’d invited them along to have a pre-opening tour to get a sense of what we were trying to do.
It won’t have failed to escape the attention of the more eagle-eyed reader, that there’s a dramatic mismatch between the audacity and ambition that Jonathan is describing and the actuality of his situation.
As he’s conjuring up this amazing vision of this incredible new game, people somehow don’t notice that he’s stood amongst a pile of rubble.
The sheer force with which he’s able to make you believe what’s about to happen somehow cancels out the preposterous situation they were all stood in. The gravity that fires out of him somehow convinces everyone that they’re seeing this completed game in front of them. Of course they could. Part magician, part huckster.
A week later, this photo was taken.
That’s the thing about creating a National Videogame Arcade is, you have to make it up from scratch. Jonathan was the enabler of that. I want to commit to record not just the role he had in bringing it all to life, but the role he had in making us all believe it was possible to do at all. That’s a lot more than being the key investor (although he was also that), it’s also about awakening the sense of possibility in people that they could actually do it. What a gift to give.
I recommend that if you ever find yourself considering if you should do something like this in the future, get yourself a Jonathan on your team.
On behalf of everyone who works at, helps or has visited the NVA, thank you Jonathan & the Smith family.
So, to more gratitude. You can look away now if you don’t like reading thank yous.
Firstly, we need to thank anyone who has been to visit us. Olivia, our head of ops, always said that we have the best customers, and she’s right.
The equation is really simple. If you hadn’t come and supported us, we wouldn’t have survived. Sure part of that is financial, because you paid (thanks!) but a huge amount of that was also your friendship, your generosity, your patronage. Thank you.
Nottingham City Council. We owe a huge debt of thanks to the people there that supported us throughout our time at Carlton st. It’s one of the worst times in living memory to be working in a local authority and we’re lucky to have friends as understanding as they have been. We’re looking forward to working more with them in the future on the festival and thank them for everything.
Our Patrons, both in the games industry and outside. In the troubled summer of 2016, the first reason we survived was because Carl Cavers, a man I had just met, described how it might be possible. Because of his insight, creativity and brute generosity in dragging us up, we were able to make the plan and raise the funds we needed to rescue everything.
A week later, because of him, not one but TWO lawyers called ‘Alex’ from Sheridans, Ian Livingstone and small band of impossibly generous friends in the videogame industry, we’d formed a new foundation and saved the NVA.
Last year, Andy Payne jumped in to help us. Once again, someone we barely knew helped us do things we didn’t think were possible. We’ve been incredibly lucky to have benefitted from the help and support of Carl, Ian and Andy over the last few years. Because they also happen to be three of the busiest people in the universe, I’m not always sure they get the chance to take a breathe and realise just how important their presence has been in the life of the NVA and the people in it. I hope that one day I can inspire others as much as they’ve inspired me.
Most recently, that cast has expanded to include Rick Gibson, CEO of the new BGI. He’s jumped into the saddle to drive the most ambitious move yet, the leap to Sheffield. Rick brings an entirely different sort of skill and energy to us, and its one we’ve never had before. Already, we’re feeling the huge benefit of his expertise and measure as we gear up.
Thank you all our guardian angels and patrons.
Our families and friends might be reading this. They’re probably reading it whilst we’re working late / early and not being as present as we’d like to be. Everyone who works on the NVA knows that your sacrifice has been just as great as ours and that none of it would have been at all possible without your love and support. This doesn’t make it any easier, but know that none of us take it for granted.
Finally, our team.
I’m honoured and humbled to have been a part of the family that created this thing. Some of them are still working with us, some of them aren’t, but I’m eternally grateful to all of them in ways that they might not realise. Historically, whenever I name names in thank yous I always forget the most important people and upset them, so I don’t want to risk that too much here. I know who they are and most importantly, they do.
So, that’s the end of episode two of the National Videogame Arcade.
We’re already working on episode three, and we’re can’t wait to share it with you.
Thanks for reading.
