Codemasters would like to see cross-cooperation between UK devs to compete with other dev regions

Ian Johnson, head of Codemasters’ Guildford studio, believes the UK industry would blossom should studios work in a more co-operative manner with others and share resources.

Johnson said such a show of solidarity and reciprocity would help the sector considerably, especially concerning competition from overseas markets.

“I think if, as a group, we had the confidence to share resources between ourselves instead of grabbing onto things like they are some valuable golden eggs, that would be ideal,” Johnson told Develop in a feature on the studio. “That’s nationally relevant too, but obviously getting there will mean many hurdles.

Johnson goes on to explain, that the Guildford studio staff shares its resources, and “is partly a response by the studios here to the competition we’re facing from overseas”.

“There’s obviously enticing tax incentives in places like Canada,” he said, “so the way that we can compete with those is to be efficient.”

Lionhead's publishing exec Stuart Whyte said Guildford’s conglomerate of studios allows for “a lot of movement between the studios, and people changing careers within the hub”.

“Hopefully we can all start to do that more and share," he offered. "We’re all going to be growing and shrinking at different points as we make games, so the ability to foster an ecosystem where we can support people to move around between Guildford studios, and actually see them learn from different companies and spread that knowledge about making games between us; that could really help us all.”

You can read the full feature on the Codemasters studio here.