LONDON GAMES FESTIVAL 2026 OPENS FOR BUSINESS WITH RECORD-HIGH UK MARKET VALUATION REVEALED

LONDON, UK – thirteenth April 2026 – The annual London Games Festival returns to the capital immediately, with a lot of client and enterprise occasions going down throughout town and on-line. The significance of the UK video games trade continues to seize headlines each regionally and globally, as trade governing physique Ukie immediately reveals the UK video video games market reached a file excessive of £8.7bn in 2025.

Ukie’s annual Consumer Games Market Valuation, launched to coincide with the London Games Festival, consists of extra market information revealing digital console and cell gross sales elevated year-on-year by 9.2% to £2.49bn, and seven.9% to £2bn respectively. Growth areas outdoors of the video games themselves embody video games associated movie, television and soundtrack gross sales up 70% to £159m, and toys and merchandising up 43% to £333m from final 12 months.

London is the third-largest world hub for video games makers, sitting simply behind Los Angeles and San Francisco, and 2026 customer numbers to the competition are set to exceed final 12 months’s with over 100,000 attendees anticipated over the approaching week, together with 5,000+ trade professionals from over 30 nations.

The enterprise of gaming continues to take centre stage on the competition with initiatives, bulletins and funding alternatives all confirmed for the week forward. The Mayor of London has been supporting the London Games Festival since 2016, his continued funding of over £4m has constructed an internationally recognised ecosystem attracting world consideration and has generated an financial enhance of over £60m.

The Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, mentioned: “Over 40m people in the UK play video games and I am proud that London is the number one city in Europe for gaming. ​ The London Games Festival is a big part of that success, attracting thousands of visitors to the city each year to celebrate video games, culture and interactive entertainment. We’re expecting even more gamers this year, confirming London’s position as a global gaming capital, as we continue to build a better London for everyone.”

Creative Industries Minister, Ian Murray, mentioned: “Video games are not only great fun, they are big business – and for too long their value to the British economy has been overlooked. That is why the government has thrown its full support behind the sector with £30 million of new funding. This will turbocharge the careers of some of our most talented game developers, creating more jobs and economic growth right across the country as their ideas come to fruition.”

This robust consequence comes on the good second, with London Games Festival operating from immediately till 19 April. Partners embody Opening Night sponsor Coutts, who help the UK’s interactive leisure sector by the competition.

Key London Games Festival enterprise occasions such because the Games Finance Market (14-15 April) sees main traders and dignitaries select London to make offers occur. This 12 months’s occasion has a file £247m of potential finance on the desk from visiting traders trying to fund new video games.

Launched in 2025, the competition now runs its personal annual consumer-facing video games showcase, New Game Plus, the place most of the people can play new and subsequent recreation releases, and have the chance to fulfill the expertise behind their favorite video games. The two-day occasion takes place later this week at Exhibition White City between Sixteenth-Seventeenth April.

London is proud to be one of the crucial numerous cities on the planet, and the competition mirrors this with alternatives for underrepresented artists and recreation makers to be celebrated and supported. The annual Ensemble cohort and Games London programmes like Game Changer guarantee expertise will get to shine and succeed no matter obstacles confronted. This 12 months’s Ensemble line-up might be seen immediately at Trafalgar Square and later within the week at New Game Plus.

Global players unable to attend in individual, can head to Apple and Steam, who proceed to help the competition with partnerships that characteristic British expertise and LGF programmes resembling its Official Selection.

London’s artistic and cultural industries proceed to help proceedings, with the BAFTA Games Awards and Screen Play on the BFI all taking place throughout the competition window.

In addition to the bodily occasions, London Games Festival additionally publicizes three main new assets are launching to help the broader trade workforce and success sustainability, made attainable by help from the BFI Innovation Challenge Fund.

The Games Insights Database (GIDB) is a brand new free platform that maps the UK video games trade utilizing information that hasn’t beforehand been pulled collectively in a single place. Built in partnership with Games Jobs Live, Into Games, and Birds Eye View, it helps with profession planning and hiring by its Workforce Data Hub and Jobs Framework, protecting wage benchmarks and development routes throughout artwork, design, and code.

The Self-publishing Toolkit, developed by Games London, is a free on-line useful resource geared toward indie studios eager to launch and market their very own video games. It’s designed to make the market extra accessible, particularly for builders from underrepresented backgrounds, with sensible steering on every thing from neighborhood administration to manufacturing.

The UK Video Games Impact Framework is a landmark examine from OKRE, delivered in partnership with Ukie, that units out a shared method of measuring the trade’s social and cultural contributions. It seems on the affect of video games on well being, training, and social engagement, giving policymakers and researchers a standard basis to work from as they give the impression of being to profit from what the sector has to supply.

For common updates from London Games Festival and Games London, join the weekly publication at www.games.london or observe @londongamesfest. For partnership enquiries contact partnerships@video games.london

For additional press data, please contact:

The London Games Festival group at Indigo Pearl

E: [email protected] ​

About London Games Festival & Games London

London Games Festival is delivered by Games London, a groundbreaking programme from Film London, the capital’s display screen industries company. Games London is backed by the Mayor of London with over £1m funding over 4 years and supported by the UK Government through the Video Games Growth Package, a part of the Creative Industries Sector Plan.

Games London delivers a lot of initiatives designed to make London the video games capital of the world. These embody the London Games Festival and its tentpole occasions and programmes together with Ensemble, the Games Finance Market and New Game Plus. Other exercise consists of inbound and outbound commerce missions, accelerator schemes for enterprise founders, and work supporting video games improvement abilities in London.

Since 2016 Games London has helped facilitate over £110m price of accomplished funding offers and software program gross sales for video games studios, which has led to the creation of almost 1,000 jobs. In that point London has grown to grow to be the No.1 metropolis for video games in Europe and a prime 3 video games cluster globally.