Games industry legend Ian Livingstone was the guest of honour on
Tuesday at the official opening of the new Bristol Games Hub. The
newly launched non-profit organisation runs free networking and
training events and affordable desk space for many of the cities
thriving community of games developers. The event saw over 60 people
from Bristol and the South West gather to hear Livingstone talk about
his personal experience of video games, the changing face and
importance of the industry to the UK at large.

Bristol Games Hub has grown through word of mouth with 23 developers
signed up within 3 weeks. "The Directors have been running events and
building the community in Bristol for the last 2 years, so it was a
natural progression for us to develop a space where devs could also
work together" said the Hub’s Director and coordinator Debbie
Rawlings. "There is a real buzz for what we’re doing and all of our
events, such as our monthly Unity group and the recent demo of the
Oculus Rift, have been really well attended. New start-ups, young
companies and freelancers need this kind of support to help them focus
on creating and marketing their games and products so we wanted to
create a vibrant, dynamic space to assist them." Debbie is a
co-founder of the Hub along with fellow Auroch Digital director Tomas
Rawlings and Opposable Games’ Ben Trewhella. The Hub is supported by
Digital Cultures Research Centre, UWE, The Pervasive Media Studio and
Watershed, Creative England and Aquarela Developments.

The Games Hub is home now to 30 local developers and freelancers from
new start-ups to more established teams. As well as multi-screen
specialists Opposable Games and Endgame:Syria creator Auroch Digital,
the Hub is home to Demon Apathy, Force of Habit, Large Visible
Machine, ldexterldesign and Lo-Fi Games as well as developers from
Qube creators Toxic Games, popular casual game developers Geek Beach
and some very talented freelance designers, artists and illustrators.