UK FOCUS
The next stage was Tracey and I drawing up a list of people we knew or had seen tweeting about pro-EU topics, and getting their email addresses, and saying, “Look, we’re going be hosting this brunch in Brighton on this day. Do you wanna come along?”. We had about 20 people coming along from the video games industry to that first meeting. The most difficult bit of it was actually getting everyone’s brunch orders right. GEORGE OSBORN: We were obviously a little tense, getting ready to pitch the idea. But it really flew with people, and they were really encouraging us. People really wanted to make sure that we focused on the big issue at hand in relation to the games industry, and all the different permutations of what would happen if we left the European Union. There’s good representation of the British video games industry on a broader political policy level. For example, UKIE (UK Interactive Entertainment Association), the games industry trade body, is an effective advocate for us, but it can’t go for a completely pro- EU position, because a trade body’s responsibility is to work with government for the benefit of the industry. But we, as an activist group, have much more wiggle room to say, “We think this is going to be bad for the industry, and we’re going to passionately campaign.” We wanted to campaign on the basis that we think remaining within the European Union or as close to it as possible is essential. That was a key conceptual point. We also put together a document that said: “This is what we’re doing. This is what we are standing for”, and we’re using that as kind of a lodestar around which we based everything else. Between the point we founded in early summer 2018 and now there actually wasn’t time to do too much. We had to make sure we were really focused and thinking about what we could do that would make the most difference. FEED: And how did that first meeting at Develop: Brighton go?
as close to it as possible. That was our starting point. That seems quite a basic point, but it’s informed a lot of our actions since then. We’ve been looking at all the developments in the political world, and it’s been rather chaotic. But because we’ve had such a clear position, it’s enabled us to look much more closely at the things we support. One of the key things we’re focusing on is the idea of a People’s Vote, or a final say, in which we would secure a second referendum on the Brexit deal and give people the chance to look at it and say: “When I voted in 2016, I voted on the basis of quite a lot of hypotheticals. Here are the two options that are actually on the table, so let’s vote on those.” Rather than just going out and doing absolutely everything possible, we’ve been trying to spread that message on a wide basis. We’re also going to MPs who have video game companies within their constituencies and explaining to them what the risks are for those businesses. FEED: I would have thought that the constituencies with lots of video game companies would have fewer Brexit voters. GEORGE OSBORN: Surprisingly, there are some constituencies with video game companies that voted for Brexit. One of the things about the British video game industry is it’s a truly national industry. Obviously there’s a large concentration of companies within London, but there are over 20 cities in the UK with more than 20 video games companies in them. I think Manchester itself voted to remain, but the constituencies surrounding it, many of them voted leave. In terms of what that means in practical campaign actions, there were two things. The first was that we opened up a public letter for signing by the video game industry. Over 120 companies signed it, and over 1300 individuals. Then we took that letter to the 200-odd MPs who have video game companies in their constituencies, with the full list of signatures so they’re aware of the strength of feeling. Alongside that, we combined forces with (software development company) Tech For UK and sent the letter on to the Prime Minister directly. I think it was actually handed in physically to Downing Street, alongside a small delegation of people. We also produced a 51-page guide that indicated what could happen to video games companies if there was, say, a no
GEORGE OSBORN “We think remaining within the European Union or as close to it as possible is essential. That was a key point”
confidence to turn it from being a little organisation for uniting people in the games industry into a campaigning group. FEED: There are a lot of people who think ‘Oh, we should do something about this’ around an issue, but they aren’t able to complete the basic actions needed to get the thing off the ground. What exactly did you do? GEORGE OSBORNE: The first thing we did was try and test whether there might be an appetite for a group like this. I’ve got a reasonably decent Twitter following, mostly drawn from the British video games industry, so I went down that route. I put out a tweet that asked whether people thought the UK video game industry was pro EU. I know it’s very simple, and not particularly scientific, but within 24 hours of tweeting, we had almost 1000 likes. And in the context of the British video games industry, that actually would be quite a sizeable percentage, so we thought we had something.
FEED: So what do you stand for? What were those things that you
got down in that document?
GEORGE OSBORN: Games4EU’s most important position is to campaign on behalf of the British video games industry to stay within the European Union or
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