One of the biggest names in Liverpool鈥檚 gaming sector has called for it to get more of the attention given to the sport, film and music industries.
Clemens Wangerin is the CEO of VTime and was speaking at an exclusive gaming event in the city called Game On!, which was hosted at the offices of Sony Interactive Entertainment on Old Hall Street.
Wangerin has worked in the gaming industry since moving to Liverpool in 1997 but said the sector was the poor relation when compared to the attention given to sport, film and music in the region.
He said: 鈥淚 keep hearing gaming is the city’s best kept secret.聽Liverpool鈥檚 gaming sector is in its third renaissance.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been around since the early 80s. In the last 10 years we鈥檝e seen a wave of new founders coming to the local sector and starting some really successful businesses.
鈥淚t’s been a part of this city and the region for 30 years, shaping things globally from here and increasingly created by people from here.
鈥淕ames are not as personality-led as music, sports and films. A lot of people have a favourite game but even the most ardent gamer would be hard pushed to name the producer and director of a game.
鈥淭hat is one of the humps we still need to get over but in the meantime what we have are the brands of the companies and their games.
鈥淭he creative and digital sector is big, it聽has a lot of talent and聽covers a lot of sectors but聽gaming is a huge part of it,聽and a proven success with global appeal that’s instantly recognisable and relatable to people of all ages. And I think we need to talk about that more.
鈥淚 struggle to think of another aspect of the creative and digital sector that is as big and as聽globally聽successful. There鈥檚 an argument to elevate gaming to the same level as music, film and sport聽in terms of the cultural聽and popular聽narrative.鈥�
Wangerin said Liverpool was聽dominated by one company – Psygnosis – 聽when he first came to the city in 1997 but it鈥檚 now home to the likes of PlayStation and a number of burgeoning independent studios.
In 2013 he joined visionary founder聽Martin Kenwright聽to help set up vTime, which聽now employs 40 people and has raised聽$11.7m聽in investment, led by Deepbridge Capital.
He said: 鈥渧Time is a company that focuses on changing how people聽to聽communicate with each other and聽engage with聽the world around them,聽using enabling technologies such as聽AI and VR.鈥�
The Game On! event聽was a joint venture between the 老九品茶 & IP Centre Liverpool (BIPC) and Professional Liverpool.
Nearly 100 people attended and Wangerin was joined on the speaker panel by Matt Wilson of Sony Interactive Entertainment and Lauren Forbes of InnovateHer.
The event was hosted by Chris Maguire, executive editor 老九品茶Cloud and TechBlast.