Will micro-developers drive growth in the video games world? Alistair Houghton reports

IN VIDEO gaming, its the small firms of today that will be the big successes of tomorrow.

That was the upbeat message from Develop Liverpool, the video games conference last week that shone a spotlight on the North Wests video gaming sector.

The main conference saw representatives from the biggest companies in software, from Sony to Electronic Arts, debate issues from mobile gaming to the physics of on-screen animation.

And, in the room next door, Develops sister conference, Indie Dev Day, focused on how smaller studios can thrive in a market where anyone can make games and market them to hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

Liverpool and Cheshire have a long heritage in gaming, thanks to pioneering companies such as Psygnosis, later bought by Sony.

The sector was much admired by regeneration officials, who hoped it could help drive the region to growth.

But last year Sony, Merseysides biggest gaming company, axed several staff in its Wavertree base. And, in January, Speke developer Bizarre Creations was closed by US owner Activision with the loss of 200 jobs.

The industry looked to be wobbling, and some feared that talented developers could be lost to countries such as Canada, which offer tax breaks to gaming firms.

But, instead, many former Sony and Bizarre staff have stayed in the region and started their own companies.

They, and other games professionals who have also set up shop in the region, are taking advantage of the changing video games market.

Until recently, games were sold in boxes through shops. The market advantage lay with the big studios, who could fund the production of big-budget titles for consoles such as the PlayStation or the XBox.

But, today, there are many more ways to sell games large and small.

They can be sold directly to smartphone or tablet owners through marketplaces such as Apples App Store. They can be sold directly to console owners through services such as PlayStation Network or WiiWare. And they can be played through social networks, such as Facebook.

This year, Phil Gaskell and Leo Cubbin, both former employees of Sony in Liverpool, launched publisher RebelPlay in the city to focus on games made by indie developers.

Mr Gaskell, the companys creative director, took part in the Developers Question Time debate onstage at Develop, at the Hilton Hotel. He said he was thrilled to be part of the vibrant games scene in the North West that could take advantage of digital distribution.

He said: What were entering now at the moment is a second golden age in gaming the birth of the micro-developer.

As weve seen, the closure of these large studios like Bizarre Creations, and in Warrington we saw the demise of THQ Digital what weve seen is these small micro-developers setting up, making small games for iPhone, or for Playstation Network.

We look back to the old days of the Spectrum these were the bedroom programmers, where three or four guys could make a successful game. Were back in those days now, and its fantastic.

Its all down to digital distribution its thanks to those barriers being removed.

Matt Cavanagh, former lead designer at Bizarre Creations, and now one of the new breed of games developers hoping to make a mark on the mobile gaming world, said: I was made redundant from Bizarre Creations earlier in the year, and I decided that I was going to have a crack at making games for myself. So I formed Totem Games with my wife, Jill.

Running his own firm, has, Mr Cavanagh says, been scary, but very rewarding.

He added: Its great to be able to have complete creative control over my games.

I do sometimes miss the company of working with a big team of people, but I hope Ive created something that people will talk about and remember.

That something is SpaceOff, a new genre blend retro game for the iPhone game where two players compete against each other to blast asteroids.

It is, says Mr Cavanagh, one of the few games that allows people to play against each other on one iPhone screen.

He added: Im hoping that will help the game to reach a larger audience.

Mr Cavanagh demonstrated his game at the Liverpool Indie Showcase, a networking event held immediately after Develop, at the nearby Cafe Sports Express.

The event saw owners and staff from 24 Merseyside and Cheshire games companies show off their wares.

Organiser Ivan Davies, production and development director at video game production company Catalyst Outsourcing, said the event was an ideal opportunity to get people from Liverpool and people from the UK games community together to get them speaking with one another.

He added: Liverpools got a fantastic heritage in video games. We started with Imagine in the mid-80s, and then Psygnosis. Weve got Sony now.

Its got a wealth of experience and a wealth of talent.

Another exhibitor at the Indie Showcase was Liverpool publisher Thumbstar Games. It came in the week that the company secured significant investment from games industry veterans Martin and Gareth Edmondson, who have joined the companys board.

Thumbstar plans to open a studio in Newcastle and its chief operating officer, Martin Kitney, said it was likely to recruit more staff to its headquarters in Liverpool Innovation Park.

Starting your own games company can be tough, so speakers at Indie Dev Day offered advice on how developers could best go it alone.

Ben Ward, another former Bizarre Creations employee, discussed how he and two colleagues set up Liverpool studio Hogrocket this year.

Meanwhile, Ewan Lamont, chief executive and co-founder of Legendary Games, discussed the pros and cons of starting in business.

Using a slide showing Mel Gibson, in Braveheart, he talked about the freedom starting up could give you, including the fact you can work with who you want to work with.

Another possible pro, he said, was money.

Standing in front of a slide showing a cartoon chest of gold, he said: Its true that, if you go to work for a big-name organisation like Sony or EA, then you can get some really comfortable wages.

But, if you want to be super-rich kind of Russian oligarch rich the only way thats going to happen is if you have got a stake in the company. Its not everybodys motivator, but its a big motivator for a lot of people.

And Mr Lamont said small hi-tech firms would drive the UKs economic growth.

He said: Our country is in a bit of a bad spot at the moment. Any growth that we have had in the last 10 years hasnt come from companies that existed 10 years ago. It came from new companies that started.

The big companies that have changed peoples lives, like Google and Facebook, they didnt exist 10 years ago. If we are going to get out of this black hole that we are in, its not going to be the guys in Westminster that are going to do it. Its going to be the people in this room, and people like us.

Develops event director, Andy Lane, was clearly delighted with the reception local developers had given to the event.

He said: The North West has always been recognised as a hotbed of creative talent, right from the 80s through until now, and so I think its right that the event is here to reflect that type of community and the games they are making.

The response has been fantastic. I think theres a real wish to learn from each other, to meet one another, and to basically push forward the boundaries of what it is that making games is all about.