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PRESS START ON YOUR GAMES CAREER in 2021

Friday 26th March - Friday 2nd April

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The Challenges

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

FRAgMENTATION in sector >>

SKILLS gaps >>

DIVERSITY of workforce >>

Low AWARENESS of games careers >>

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THE VISION

Free, Open

platform

Inclusive + diverse

Public

facing

Pan-sector

initiative

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

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The Festival

Games Careers Week is a celebration of games careers with nationwide online events reaching parents, learners, teachers, job-seekers and >50 games organisations.

GCW will showcase the skills, pathways and potential of games careers to the public through events and media, foregrounding diverse developers.

We want to encourage:

Young people to gain the creative tech skills needed to thrive in the modern world
Parents to challenge stereotypes & guide children towards well-paid creative careers
Educators to find classroom resources
Job-seekers of all ages to help start careers
Games studios to work with schools & universities to share their career opportunities

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

Andy

The initial concept of GCW is that we intend to make it a celebration of careers in games development.

Everybody here knows how rewarding and authentic a career in the games industry is however I think we can all agree that this may be a viewpoint that isn't shared within some of the wider population.

By starting to change some of these perceptions, we all believe that we can influence long term changes and begin to address some of the issues that exist in the industry such as a diverse workforce.

At GCW, we want to showcase the skills, pathways and the potential of a career in games to the wider public through a nationwide network of online events. This will need to involve studios, educators and non-profits like us pulling together in a collaborative way. We feel that by working together as one industry, rather than competing, we can all influence a larger change in perception which means that in the long-term we will all collectively reap the benefits.

GCW is intended to be vehicle for this, we want to; help young people to gain the creative tech skills they need, encourage parents to challenge the stereotypes that may exist and help guide their children towards a legitimate career in the industry, we want educators to be able to find more resources, studios to find more opportunities to work with schools and universities and ultimately job-seekers to be able to start their careers.

However I must stress, that this really only works if we as an industry work together collectively.

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The Website

Launching mid-March, the site will intuitively guide young people, parents, educators and job-seekers towards events and careers info.

Showcase games careers info year round
Signpost partner programmes
Promote events during the week
Help attendees find multiple events
Capture/measure public interest

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

Partners will register event details, links, images and dates.

To help the public find multiple events, we’re asking you to signpost using an iframe that promotes events on your pages.

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The targets

50+

partners

30+

events

100,000

participants

10m

Social engagements

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

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The Media

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

To change the public’s minds, we need to talk to them through mainstream media, social media and online.

We have partnered with Shift6, an innovative digital comms agency run by Lexi Mills

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Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

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Non-gaming media perceptions in 2020 aren’t always positive!

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Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

90% of information transmitted to the human brain is visual. MIT

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Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

91% of consumers now prefer visual content over traditional text-based media.

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Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

Image searches can inadvertently influence accessibility

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Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

Games developers are rarely portrayed as diverse

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#theinbounder

We’re asking you for images of diverse developers to change the visual narrative

Title goes Here

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Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

We’ll also be sourcing and distributing articles from diverse developers

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CURRENT EVENTS

FRI 26th

Grads in Games Conference

GiG Career Connector

GiG University

Open Day

UKIE Student

Conference

GiG Awards 2021

Search for a Star Winners

SAT 27th

SUN 28th

MON 29th

TUES 30th

WED 31ST

THU 1ST

FRI 2nd

Into Games #portfoliopitstop

BGI Games Education Summit

Digital Schoolhouse + Into Games School Career Sessions

Now Play This

National Videogame Museum Careers Exhibition, Workshops and Careers Talks with Sumo Digital

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

Into Games Champions Projects

Andy

Now Play This

Running as part of the London games festival, Now Play This is a festival of experimental game design in partnership with Somerset House.

#portfoliopitstop

Into Games will have dozens of industry professionals on hand to provide quick, helpful advice to learners or those early in their career via Twitter. Those using the hashtag #portfoliopitstop will get tips on how to develop and improve their portfolio work to get them ready for work.

School Career Sessions

Digital School House and Into Games are creating a careers lesson tool kit that will let teachers in primary and secondary school provide their students with high-quality games careers education in class or via remote learning. This, in partnership with the One Minute Mentor bank of career videos, will provide a powerful and long-lasting resource for teachers across the UK.

National Videogame Museum careers exhibition will showcase games careers to its online visitors, run games development training workshops targeting 8-12 year olds and host careers talks from young developers from Sumo.

Into Games Champions Projects

The Champions are 15 diverse industry professionals that each represent a different discipline in the sector. The Champions will be running events throughout the week showcasing their skills to learners via Twitch, in local schools or through other events in the week.

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Your EVENTS COULD BE...

OPEN STUDIOS

CAREERS

TALKs

Live Streams

ANYTHING

ELSE..!

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

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Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

Discord channel sessions

Ask Me Anything sessions on webpages

Careers podcasts

Twitch or YouTube streams

Day in the Life Facebook streams

Interview the interviewer sessions

University careers fairs

School assembly talks

Events could be live or pre-recorded and released/re-released during the week

Other event ideas

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HOW TO get involved

SUBMIT >

Submit an EOI form
Full info provided at a later date

GET HELP >

Sign up to the Videogame Ambassadors
Get career presentations for schools
Ask us for what you need...

AMPLIFY >

Use #gamescareersweek on social media
We will help provide PR and cross promotion

RECORD IT >

Who came?
Did they enjoy it?
Photos and stories
Tell us!

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

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Run an event

Fill in the interest form arriving in your inbox soon and we’ll send you a starter kit in Feb

Get support

Join the Videogame Ambassadors scheme to matchmake speakers with schools and universities

Send us your pics

We’ll contact you to ask you to send us pictures of diverse games development for the image library

Join our Discord

Join the Discord channel to share ideas, discuss events, get materials and find partners

The takeaways

Gamescareersweek.org / @gamescareerweek / #gamescareersweek

bit.ly/JoinGamesCareersWeek

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Thank you

Games Careers Week is a non-profit event organised and funded by the BGI, Into Games and Grads in Games, supported by TIGA, NextGen Skills Academy, Gamesindustry.biz and Ukie

In association with

Grads in games

Grads in Games is run by a new non-profit Community Interest Company which equips students with the skills games employers need.

gradsingames.com

The BGI

The BGI is a registered charity number 1183530 which educates the public about games through The National Videogame museum, training and research.

www.thebgi.uk

Into games

Into Games is a national non-profit Community Interest Company that supports people from all backgrounds in finding rewarding careers in games. intogames.org