Colin Macdonald keynote

23 October 2015

Channel 4 Games Commissioner’s keynote at The Herald Scottish Digital Business Awards 2015

 

The last time I was on stage at these awards was in 2009 - I'd submitted my company at the time, Realtime Worlds, in various categories. But with a big project deadline looming I struggled to justify coming through from Dundee to attend, until I got one of those phonecalls suggesting I really should be there. With hopeful thoughts, I came along, but after watching every award we'd entered go to someone else I was gutted.... and tempted to sneak out to get back to the office. But I stayed to the end out of courtesy - and perhaps from being stuck in the middle of a row - only to be delighted for us to win a previously unannounced award right at the very end.

I learnt a little lesson about persistence and hope that day. Unfortunately Realtime Worlds ended up not surviving, but I'm still intensely proud that we at least tried, and I'd do it all again.

Since then I've been Channel 4's Games Commissioner; commissioning mobile games for shows like Hollyoaks, Made in Chelsea and The Snowman. Some of them created by the fantastic developers we have here in Scotland - most recently Glasgow's Chunk Digital did Reverse The Odds for us - a game for Stand Up To Cancer which gets players to analyse actual cancer slides, and to date four million of them have been fed back to Cancer Research UK, making a real difference in the fight against cancer. That game has also gone on to win a number of awards; including a Digital Emmy, although I have to confess I had no idea games could even win Emmys until we got nominated.

Like all things digital, mobile is changing at a phenomenal pace, particularly with consumer expectations of production standards always rising. 

Thankfully Scotland is blessed with some of the sharpest technical minds and most creative artists and designers around. But with literally millions of apps for users to choose from, the problem of discoverability is causing our developers to struggle to find audiences for their games, so we got Channel 4 to launch an indie game publishing venture, All 4 Games, which will uncover amazing unsung gems of games, take them under its wing, and promote them to the Channel 4 audience to enable more games to succeed.

But succeeding involves taking chances. And with it the risk of failure. Lets increase our chances of success by taking the stigma out of failure. Thomas Edison once said "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work".

Let's all be more like Thomas Edison and find the positives rather than the negatives in failure. Both our own, and those of others.

Getting to success in the creative industries is a tale of two parts - one of ideas-and-implementation; the other, of exploitation. And it's in the exploitation that Scotland most often gets outdone.

As a 15 year old I had a letter published in a games magazine saying I'd created some software, and it was on sale - for a pound a copy. One day someone turned up at my Mother's front door asking for more details. I hadn't told her about my little venture as I felt by profiteering I was doing something wrong. I felt guilty to the extent I hastily proclaimed that instead of having to send me money, anyone could just send me a blank disc and a Stamped Addressed Envelope and I'd send them it free of charge. I kept that offer in place for four years for fear of being too commercially aggressive. In asking for a pound.

That little hobby of mine ended up paying my way through University and gave me the experience which enabled me to have a career doing something I love to this day. And I've become a firm believer in the Confucian saying of Finding a job you love and never working a day in your life.

But why wasn't I more confident all those years ago? Why wasn't I more proud of what I was doing? Let's change that.

Let's all encourage our up-and-coming talent to try to repeat local success stories like the Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto's, the FanDuel's and the Sky Scanners. 

Science and Computing are finally starting to be taught more broadly, but we need those students to apply those skills entrepreneurially.  To make their own apps and games. To form teams and try stuff out. To join existing teams and collaborate to make something bigger, something better. Worst case, they fail, learning even more from their experience, and building out a portfolio for themselves.

Let's encourage everyone - regardless of age, sex, academic level or background - to create more. And to be proud of showing it off.

It's sometimes said that Dundonians are the most well-balanced people in Scotland; because they have a chip on both shoulders. And I hate going home and feeling the lazy sense of entitlement that comes from that. Because we're better than that. We're better than expecting - or wanting - to be given something on a plate. We should be going out there and making the opportunities for ourselves. 

Let's follow in the footsteps of those that created a little game called Minecraft - and sold it to Microsoft for $2.5bn. Or of those just a few miles from here that still make millions today from the console versions of Minecraft. Those that go on to tell Select Committees that Scotland's games industry could make North Sea oil look like a drop in the ocean.

Is that true? Who knows. But let's all think bigger. Let's stop waiting for permission. Let's be proud of shooting for the moon.

I hope my token persistence and hope at these awards six years ago gets wildly surpassed by everyone else tonight. And every day thereafter. And that together we'll all :

- Embrace failure.

- Make more.

- and Think big.

Thank you.