Floating Point Studios grant
Swansea-based developer trousers Knowledge Exploitation Fund cash.
Today Swansea’s premiere video games development company, Floating Point Studios Ltd, has been awarded the Knowledge Exploitation Fund scholarship grant. Knowledge Exploitation Fund (KEF) is a scholarship grant supported by the Welsh Assembly Government and European Union Structural Funds and is designed to build upon collaborative research and development between Welsh universities and private industry in Wales to aid in creating a sustainable knowledge based economy built upon entrepreneurship and innovation. Floating Point Studios Ltd was incorporated in July 2008 and was the Swansea Metropolitan University’s first spin out games development studio, as well as the first limited video games development company in Swansea.
In order to receive the KEF scholarship Floating Point Studios worked very closely with the Swansea Metropolitan University and with the Flexible Support for Business programme (previously G2E). Floating Point Studios’ original application to KEF was sent out in the months after the company’s incorporation and during October 2008 a conditional offer was received. In order to meet some of the conditions set out by KEF, Floating Point Studios’ invited the gaming community to help with gathering data for a response and this invite was met with massive support, which made all the difference in being awarded the scholarship. A major part of Floating Point Studios’ business plan is strong interaction with the gaming community, of which the entire team are proud members of and can often be found playing Left 4 Dead, the Quake Live Beta and Warhawk (among many others). With the extremely positive interaction with the community so far Floating Point Studios plans to continue this communication and increase the company’s focus upon it.
With regards to being awarded the KEF grant, Floating Point Studios owner and lead game designer Julian Hainsworth said “To be awarded this scholarship is fantastic and it is definitely going to be a huge help to us throughout 2009. Additionally it is splendid to see and to be part of the Welsh Assembly Government’s and European Union Structural Fund’s investment into the video games industry, it really is brilliant to be developing and to own a company in an area with such a forward thinking Government who will not only invest into the games industry by will also invest during times of such economic hardship.”
Floating Point Studios Ltd would like to extend their thanks to everyone who helped the studio gain the KEF grant, in particular: the BA creative computer games design students at the Swansea Metropolitan University, K. Penaluna, A. Hughes and everyone at the Swansea Metropolitan University, to C. Gahan and the people at the Flexible Support for Business Programme, to the PC Gamer and the N4G forum users, to the people at AceGamez.com, SpawnPoint.com, and the MediaWhoreNetwork.com and to those who emailed in answers to the KEF response questionnaire.