London Games Festival opens at Eurogamer Expo

The London Games Festival opened at Earl's Court last night, as Damien Collins MP and chairman of UKIE's Andy Payne addressed journalists and industry before giving a VIP preview of the Eurogamer Expo show floor.

The presentation begins a month of events in the city, commencing with the Eurogamer Expo today, Saturday and Sunday and continuing through October with 23 separate events across the capital.

Collins was positive about the future and standing of the UK industry, comparing its youth and passion with that of the wave of new MP's currently in Westminster.

"I think it's a sector that's coming of age in the economy," said Collins. "There's been a lot of talk in politics, this week in particular, about a new generation of people coming in to politics, and that's certainly true of the House of Commons as a whole – there's a big intake of new people of a younger generation."

"I think that's relevant to this month's activities because the first home computer generation of people are now sitting on those green benches. If you like the sons of Manic Miner, the people who trashed their keyboards playing Daley Thompson's Decathalon, are now making your laws."

"You're part of an industry which has not only come of age, but of which Britain can be rightly proud," the MP added.

He continued: "David Cameron has spoken about this as well – the ability to use technology, to do innovative things, not only to make games more rewarding but to make them more accessible. The work that UK charitable organisations like Special Effect are doing to make games more accessible to people with disabilities is something that the industry and Britain should be proud of."

Andy Payne followed Collins' speech with an appeal to the younger members of the industry.

"Innovation is all about regeneration, rebuilding, new ideas. The older generation are passing on now. But the new generation, the Eurogamer generation, are really proud to welcome you all here tonight.

"We're on the top table, in the UK. We need to stay there. We need to engage with that talent, to nurture the talent that we've got in this country. We've got to keep those standards up. We've got to make sure the talent, the kids at primary school, going to secondary school, understand the reason to learn things like maths, physics and engineering. They need to understand that there's a career in that that isn't necessarily to do with banking.

"Parents need to understand that if their kids are interested in videogames, that there is a legitimate career at the end of that. We've got a government that's listening, so we need to make sure that we make our voice heard."