State of play: The challenges facing Scotland's gaming industry

Sipping on a flat white in a busy coffee shop in central Edinburgh, it’s clear that Brian Baglow has a few things on his mind.  

Behind the brightly patterned shirt and thick-rimmed glasses, the founder of the Scottish Games Network is not pleased with the current state of the sector. 

“Scottish games could be doing so much better,” he says. “Instead of an output of nearly £200m a year, if you look at Finland, their equivalent output is over £2bn a year. Same size of country, same sort of population and a similar sort of legacy, so we in Scotland could be doing way better.” 

In Finland, the gaming sector was reported to be worth around £2.4bn in 2024, with the country sitting as one of the top five largest gaming industries in Europe. To support the sector, Finland has also been investing public money in business research, development and innovation since the mid-1990s. In comparison, Scotland is the fourth biggest gaming industry in the UK, trailing behind London, the southeast and the northwest of England.  

“I really think there needs to be a lot more support given directly to the studios that are trying to create games,” says Jenny Caplan, founder and chief executive at Scottish video game start-up Wee Tattie Studios. “We need the money, we need the funding and then we can do what we need to do with it. I think the studios themselves need to be given more autonomy to be able to be creative and do business their own way.” 

In April, the UK Government announced a pot of funding worth £28.5m, accessible to developers across the country through the UK Games Fund (UKGF). In Scotland, developers can apply for support through tech startup programmes like techscaler and CodeBase or through Creative Scotland’s general funding route.  

“I think they [Creative Scotland] don’t really like doing video games because obviously there’s so many and they want to focus more on creative or performance art,” says Caplan. “I’ve even seen us be lumped in with, like, film and TV, which is completely different because there’s not much crossover.” 

There are no direct funding routes for video games available on the Creative Scotland website. When asked for comment, a Creative Scotland spokesperson said: “We recognise the immense value of Scotland’s game sector and we share the ambition to see it grow. 

“While we understand concerns about availability of investment, games and interactive media are already an important part of our existing funding programmes and we continue to support developers and projects within the limits of the funding we have available. Funding is a core element of Creative Scotland’s role, alongside advocacy and sector development which informs a wide variety of our activity.” 

Even without targeted support, Baglow says that the economic impact of the games industry is obvious, with Scottish game developers delivering over £150,000 of Gross Value Added (GVA) per head each year, a number that is more than double the national average. 

According to a 2025 UK Government study, investment in the games industry through the UKGF generated social returns in the range of £3.80 to £7.30 for every £1 of public funds invested, with a central estimate of £4.80 per £1 of funding. 

“Creative Scotland receives more applications from games makers than we are able to support,” a Creative Scotland spokesperson said. “This is due to limited funding and the need to prioritise applications that most clearly meet our criteria and strategic aims. Nonetheless, games remain an important and growing part of Scotland’s creative industries, and we continue to support them where possible.” 

In an effort to raise the profile of video games, Baglow and the Scottish Games Network, with input from Creative Scotland and the wider gaming sector, released a national action plan in January 2026, specifically targeted at the Scottish Government. Designed to transform the sector into an “economic powerhouse”, it has an end goal of establishing Scotland as the UK’s first gaming supercluster and a target of £1bn in GVA by 2030. 

“The whole action plan was written specifically with the devolved powers in mind, which means we in Scotland don’t have to go get permission from anybody,” Baglow says. “We don’t need any legislation changed; it’s all there and it’s designed to be delivered by the infrastructure that exists now. So it’s incredibly frustrating to be sitting here for six months and going, ‘will it happen or will it not?’” 

The creation of the plan, titled Level Up Scotland, was supported by former deputy first minister Shona Robison and former innovation minister Richard Lochhead in November 2023 as part of Scottish Games Week. At its inception, Robison said she “backed the industry to create a national action plan for games in Scotland that boosts and accelerates growth and job creation, as well as amplifying the global reputation of one of Scotland’s most promising and diverse sectors”. 

The plan made five recommendations over a two-year pilot phase, which Baglow says will cost around £2.5m a year. These include the appointment of a temporary chief games officer to align the sector with national strategies, a pilot fund to leverage private capital and support original IP creation and co-development, the establishment of a national games innovation centre, and a games-focused skills and education forum spanning the length of the education cycle. 

Scotland has a rich history of video game development and education, spearheaded by Abertay University which has been producing talent for the global industry since launching Europe’s first dedicated computer games degree in 1997. It is ranked as the number one international institution for game design by the Princeton Review and can trace mega hits like Grand Theft Auto (GTA) back to its Dundee campus.   

“Education has been central to the Scottish games industry,” says Dr Dayna Galloway, head of the department of games and arts at Abertay. “We’ve been really connected to the games industry, helping drive it as part of having a great talent pipeline as our graduates go on to have a wide variety of careers.” 

GTA was developed by DMA Design, a studio founded by Abertay alum David Jones and now known as Rockstar North after its purchase in the late 1990s by American studio Take-Two Interactive. The franchise will launch its next edition, GTA VI, in November, with pre-orders of the game already generating over $3bn in revenue. 

Despite its literal proximity to the corridors of power – Rockstar North’s head office is just a minute’s walk from Holyrood – the presence of the multi-billion-pound corporation on the government’s doorstep has done little to help support the development of the wider sector in Scotland.  

“We have to be careful we don’t create the conditions in Scotland where companies definitely do not want to be based here,” says Galloway. “We need to encourage them to be here, but in a way that also doesn’t undermine the other challenges in this complex political environment that we live in.” 

In February, Scottish Labour MSP Michael Marra, who was the co-convener, along with SNP MSP Clare Adamson, of the cross-party group on Scottish Games Ecosystems, raised the Scottish Games Network’s plan in a members’ business debate. Marra raised the view that there should be a parliamentary debate about the SGN action plan and called on the Scottish Government to set out how it will engage with the recommendations made in it. 

In response, Lochhead, then occupying the business and employment ministerial brief, said that he would be “delighted” to meet with Baglow to discuss the plan, saying that he agreed with the thrust of the argument that the sector is a “nationally valuable” source of innovation and stating that the government “will carefully consider its recommendations”. 

“As we sit talking right now, the games action plan has been out for six months and nothing’s happened,” says Baglow. “I’ve had requests from the Welsh Government and Northern Irish Government for meetings to talk about the action plan. But as we sit here right now, I’ve had no indication as to whether there’s any interest in it in Scotland. There’s nothing from the Scottish Government.” 

After the May election, responsibility for the sector has belonged to Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport, Stephen Flynn. It was previously unclear who held that responsibility, with Lochhead taking questions and commenting but multiple ministers having vested interests in the sector. 

“Games are a hot potato in the sense that it has always been creative, economic and cultural, so it’s been really hard to put that in one single box,” says Gabriella McKenzie, policy engagement manager at Interactive Entertainment Scotland (IES). “It’s not just an issue with the Scottish Government. This is an issue just generally in our industry, it’s one of the things we ask for in our manifesto, is a bit more of a collaborative approach because our industry touches so many different things.” 

Before the election, IES, the Scottish arm of UKie, the trade body for the UK games industry, published a manifesto calling for strengthened policy support, increased funding and further investment in Scotland’s games talent pipeline. “Letters have gone in from us to government and we’ve not heard back yet,” says McKenzie. “But I’m hoping with a bit more conversation, especially when parliament is back as well, that’s when things will take off a bit more.” 

When asked for comment on the Scottish Government’s plans for the sector, Flynn said: “Although I’m new in post, I can offer reassurance to the sector that their importance to Scotland needed no explaining and I’m really looking forward to meeting with leaders to work together to help ensure that their potential is realised.” 

Despite the release of the SGN action plan and IES manifesto earlier this year, only two parties, the SNP and the Scottish Liberal Democrats, mentioned video games in their 2026 election manifestos. The Lib Dems committed to unlocking “investment and growth” in the sector by creating a games innovation centre alongside regional hubs, developing further expertise and providing low-cost office space for start-up studios alongside business skills support. In contrast, the SNP promised to expand the Techscaler programme into the “sectoral powerhouses” where Scotland has “distinctive strength and global opportunity”, which included games, space technology and energy transition. 

When asked if the Scottish Government had considered the plans laid out in the SGN action plan, Flynn said: “I’m giving full consideration to the recommendations of the Level Up Scotland Action Plan, and the Scottish Government continues to back the industry by supporting bringing the Dice Europe conference to Scotland in 2025, and the inaugural Scottish Games Day which will take place in Dundee in September 2026.” 

For Baglow, the central message remains the same: Scotland’s gaming sector is underperforming and only a significant change in direction can make a difference. “If we don’t implement a plan, then we’re going to continue to be out-innovated and leap-frogged by other regions who are starting to take games more seriously,” he says. 

“But my fear is that if we continue to ignore this or we take the safe, softly-softly approach we’re going to find ourselves trying to catch up with a growing number of countries who have not been as timid.”