Welcome to the London Chapter of the IGDA.

London has a thriving game development scene – it is the third-largest global hub for game makers, with a workforce of over 13,700 professionals. We organise regular accessible events under the IGDA banner, which gives this community an opportunity to unite and flourish. You do not need to be a member of the IGDA to attend most of these events, however, there are some member-only, special events each year.

Summarised, our purpose is for members of the IGDA London Chapter to: Belong, Bond and Learn.

Students

London is a large area and home to about nine million people. Within the city, are many universities that offer bachelors and masters game development courses

We seek to run regular events aimed specifically at the graduating community, helping them on the difficult transition to finding work in the industry. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Resume/portfolio reviews
• Networking 101
• Mock interviews
• Q&A with game industry recruiters

Industry

We also seek to run a wide array of events targeted at the wider games industry as a whole, including but not limited to:

• Lectures
• Panels
• Roundtables
• Lightning talks
• Demo/playtest nights
• Showcases
• Social events
  • Bar / pub nights
  • Game night / LAN party
  • Picnic / BBQs / Holiday parties
  • Charity fundraisers
• Game jams
• Coworking spaces

A yearly highlight is the London Games Festival which takes place in April each year. We endeavour to put on a number of special events during this time, likely showcases and parties.

Some of the UK’s biggest games companies are based in London, this is great news for knowledge sharing and IGDA London also gives these devs a home outside of their studios.

There are also a huge number of independent devs based in London, along with a large cohort of graduate and student devs. They are all welcome at the London IGDA. 

We are a group of game event organisers, we have experience running these types of events. One thing we collectively identified is that the community was desperate for non-drinking focused events. Many developers feel uncomfortable attending evening, bar or pub located networking events. We identified that non-drinking events are regularly oversubscribed. This community is certainly underserved by the current offerings available in London and there is room for a great deal more knowledge sharing and non-drinking focused events.

Links to other relevant groups

The London games community is also served through a few other organisations:

• Games London, a charity which organizes the annual London Games Festival, the Game Changer programme which supports games-adjacent companies in growing their business, the Accelerator programme and Ensemble which chooses eight people in the the games industry from marginalized backgrounds to showcase at varied events around London.
• Into Games, a UK-based non-profit organisation that was established in 2019 with a mission to create a fair and equitable pathway to skill development and career progression for the games and immersive industries. They put on a range of networking events and talks aimed at supporting low-income and working class people get into the games industry, but also more widely support the aim of anyone to get their first job in the games industry.
• Code Coven is a global accelerator and academy dedicated to forwarding opportunities for marginalized game developers at all levels.
• Limit Break is a mentorship program aimed at marginalised people working in the UK games industry.
• UKIE is a members association for the video game industry, which promotes the needs of its members through lobbying the Government, a wide range of events for its members and through outreach to schools. Note, this is a company-wide membership and not for individuals.
• Good Game Dev Club, a pay-what-you-want game industry networking event which takes place at Loading Bar once a month. Run by Harvey Hayman.
• London Indie Game Developers, a free, relaxed pub meetup that takes place twice a month. Run by Stefan Johansson and others.
• Game Dev Local, a mostly Discord driven network of London+ game industry folks which hosts some showcasing events irregularly.
• UK Games Industry Slack, a fairly informal Slack group which represents a large proportion of the UK games industry.
• Game Dev Lunch, a free regular meet-up for attendees to have a quick bite to eat, chat about game dev or do some coworking in the library. Run by Jade Leamcharaskul.
• London Indie Game Dev Co-working!, a free weekly coworking event at Loading Bar run by Kyra Chan and Ed Sibley.