The Dundee Design Revolution: Transforming Trade Hubs Beyond Gaming
We explore how Dundee’s gaming industry is enhancing the city’s potential for creativity, commerce, culture, and more.
This series of Playable Futures articles examines how the preservation, expertise, individuals, and concepts behind video games are shaping and impacting the broader world. You can also access all previous Playable Futures articles here.
The Scottish city of Dundee is well-recognized as one of the UK’s most prominent video game industry centers. Other centers exist, certainly, from Brighton to Liverpool through Guildford – but Dundee presents a compelling and unique case where the culture of game development has become integrated into the local community, and the influence of games on the city’s overall business and economy is felt in particularly significant ways. Inspired by the potential forward impact of the Dundee hub in the community beyond gaming, let us consider what we might observe – or might want to observe – in other regions throughout the UK.
It’s undeniable that where successful games are crafted, economies and communities flourish. Earlier this year, UKIE reported that the UK video game industry sustains 76,000 job positions while contributing a substantial £6 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA). This figure is nearly double the national average per job. Currently, however, something else is unfolding. The integration of gaming technologies to model and manage the emergence of complex systems in new sectors – along with the application of gaming design principles to enhance user experiences – is leading to the creation of new markets and opportunities for development studios.
“Dundee’s gaming industry is supporting and nurturing all these other local industries, benefitting the economy and skill development.”
Gregor White, Abertay University
Before delving into Dundee as an example of all this, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on how our industry became established in the Scottish city. In Dundee, creativity and skill have long been central to the city’s economy, even before video games became a topic of discussion.
“Before the gaming industry took root in the city, Dundee’s economy relied on manufacturing and electronic engineering, along with a robust commercial art tradition in comics and greeting cards. As manufacturing declined in the 1980s, these foundational elements supported the rise of the gaming industry,” explains Gregor White, Professor of Applied Creativity and Director of the CoSTAR Realtime Lab at Abertay University, who spearheaded many of the institution’s significant gaming projects and initiatives.
“In the mid-1980s, times were tough here, just as they were across the nation in that post-industrial period. Dundee was not affluent, and the city faced high unemployment rates, mirroring many post-industrial cities at the time. We had some light engineering at Timex, and they were producing the ZX Spectrum. Hence, we had light engineering, microelectronics, and a publishing sector, along with a graphic arts tradition in comics and greeting cards. Dundee needed something new, and these industries were the early foundation for games to thrive.”
It was then that former Timex employee David Jones, part of a group of friends who were exploring home computing systems out of interest, recognized that such potential could establish local businesses. In 1987, he founded DMA Design, the studio behind Lemmings and the original Grand Theft Auto.
“You can truly see how gaming in Dundee is rooted in this long history of local creativity,” continues Chris van der Kuyl, co-founder and chairman of the renowned Dundee developer 4J Studios. “Within 20 minutes of 4J, we have three very solid universities, but it runs a bit deeper than that. When discussing Dundee culture, you cannot mention Dundee without bringing up D.C. Thomson.”
Founded in 1905, D.C. Thomson is the longstanding publishing house most famously recognized for its comics The Beano, The Dandy, and Commando, which rank among Dundee’s most notable global exports – unless you count Grand Theft Auto.
“Without the influence of that publishing empire on the creative arts in the city, I’m uncertain how much of what we see in today’s creative industries in Dundee would exist,” van der Kuyl adds. “The local lore is that D.C. Thomson once invested in a new printing machine capable of producing a third color in addition to black and white, which truly distinguished it and gave it a competitive edge. It’s remarkable to think about the lasting influence D.C. Thomson had, and games represent the current chapter of that legacy; building on the past while shaping the future. Since they completely dominated the comics market, they developed an extraordinary talent pipeline of writers, creators, artists, and so forth, with many transitioning from comics to Dundee’s gaming sector even into the 1990s.”
This brings us to the present, where Dundee houses a vibrant community of both established and newly formed studios, alongside a richly diverse local talent pool. In addition, there exists a triad of Abertay University, the University of Dundee, and St. Andrews, all of which have been remarkably proactive in collaborating with and supporting the gaming industry. In 2018, the universities and the local industry united to launch InGAME: Innovation for Games and Media Industry, an R&D-led cluster development initiative that delivered significant growth and value impact within the local industry. Some of the outcomes of this investment included extended phases of innovation within the cluster, leading to a more diverse and dynamic gaming ecosystem in the city.
It’s important to highlight, of course, that Abertay has built a reputation of excellence.