Interviews// From Bedrooms to Billions - Part 2

The UK video games industry didn’t exist. Nope. That vibrant bedroom-coder culture of the 1980s, the one that sparked a world-renowned nation of games developers? Never happened. This cold, cutting (and false) notion is just one of many that filmmaker Anthony Caulfield has endured on his mission to produce UK games documentary From Bedrooms to Billions.

But, while Anthony had heard claims from TV executives that the British boom was “too niche” a subject to cover, several surprising whitewashes of cultural history came from a few unlikely sources - video games companies themselves.

“We had some really interesting emails from some very big publishers, who actually said, ‘Thank you very much, but we wouldn’t back anything to do with the UK video game industry as it’s been in decline for such a long time,’” Anthony recalled. “‘We wouldn’t want to be associated with something that’s basically dying.’”

Other financiers responded in kind. “If you’re telling a story of the overall, worldwide games industry, then we could back you,” some would say, adding that, “there really wasn’t much of a UK industry, so why would we want to back something that didn’t really exist?” Even in schools, Anthony explains that today’s youth aren’t even aware that the UK had such a huge role in the evolution of the global games industry.

“On the global stage, people have forgotten about what we’ve accomplished,” Anthony sighs. “It’s gone. Hearing comments like that, from video game companies no less, really gives you a sense of Union Jack-waving pride. Your chest starts to puff out and you think, “WHAT!?” It’s ridiculous.”

Previously, Anthony had explained why he decided to go through countless failed TV pitches, a redacted BBC series and a crashed DVD campaign to get From Bedrooms to Billions made, but hearing such discouraging words from people in the same industry that he was trying to document drove a desire to discuss the reasons why the UK industry was so important.

“In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was an obsession among kids and young adults to program. It came out of nowhere. These 11-year-old kids would somehow acquire home computers just to explore and satisfy their curiosities.” The producer mentions the day job of original Football Manager creator Kevin Toms as an example - emptying bins. A humble beginning, indeed.

“An industry that ended up turning over billions of pounds, starting in people’s bedrooms or spare rooms, mail order and the most awful primitive magazines - black pages with white writing on them,” Anthony continued. “What it all shows is that this was an industry that started life with no track record, doing the odd clone of US games to teach ourselves, to become a force that actually dominated when we began making original titles in the late 1980s.”

For 18 months, the UK video games industry was bigger than that of the US. So much for the industry that never existed.

But, we didn’t just make a mark in our own domestic industry - “Electronic Arts owes an awful lot to the UK,” as British talent started to move Stateside in the early 1990s. But, the brain drain eventually became so large that we eventually destroyed ourselves. It’s not hard to see why so many people seem to think that we never had much of an industry.

“One thing people will learn from this film is, why did we all start selling up? Suddenly, the UK lost that ability to dominate. It was no longer on the very verge of global success,” Anthony said. “By 2000, the UK talent was virtually all gone. They either went to the US, Europe or had given up on games altogether.

"The US industry saw a steady rise, as did Japan and other European industries. Whereas for some reason in the UK industry’s history, we see a slow rise, to a real peak, then a drastic drop off, and it didn’t recover.”

Following Anthony and Nicola Caulfields’ huge setback with the pulling of its BBC Four documentary series, the couple put From Bedrooms to Billions on the backburner, until they had completed their first movie. Called Burlesque Undressed, it was a documentary that was “a relative success”, and allowed the pair to have more positive conversations with financiers.

Shortly after this encouragement, it was decided that From Bedrooms to Billions should become a movie documentary, instead of a TV show. Although initially there was a less than encouraging response, the producers turned to the UK Film Council and had an overwhelmingly positive response. So much so, that Anthony and Nicola began approaching companies ahead of approval, confident that their project would get the green light.

But things, once again, took a depressing turn. The reason? The UK General Election. “Literally, right when we thought we were going to get the thumbs up, the UK Film Council was shut down,” Anthony lamented. “The coalition government came into power and - no word of a lie - within ten days of doing so, the Council was abolished.”

There was a silver lining to that cloud, however. Some of the companies that the Caulfields’ had been speaking to prior to the UK Film Council’s destruction were saddened to hear of the news and offered client-based work in the interim. A number of internal productions for SEGA and others followed. While this was happening, the couple took the time to rescript From Bedrooms to Billions, and drafted out costings to finish the project themselves by April 2013.

Crowd-funding website indiegogo was the answer - an experience that Anthony admits was a little daunting. “Speaking from a film perspective, I’m used to going to financiers, setting up a one-time pitch, ask for money and await their response - in exchange for their full control over the project. This is a completely new experience for me.

“But I think it’s extremely exciting. It suddenly means that the cream has more of a chance of rising to the top, providing you get your pitch right and people understand the idea. It then comes down to the responsibility of the filmmaker to get the word out there (without spamming) on social networks to let people know what you’re trying to achieve.”

Currently, the project is standing at just under $33,000 of its $35,000 target, with nine days left to go on the crowd-funding campaign. Anthony and Nicola are on tenterhooks to see if they can achieve the goal - otherwise all of the money will be refunded and they will be back to square one again. Anthony stresses that the backing of the UK industry - as well as the potential this film has to educate today’s youth - is a key reason why they must succeed.

“If we’re able to make this a reality then From Bedrooms to Billions will be made available, when finished, to every single secondary school across the UK, free of charge,” he reveals. “The idea behind this is that the film can be shown to children when considering their options, to illustrate the history of our industry and what inspired the kids of the 1970s.

“It’s something to be really proud of, our historical culture. And it might just help, along with other tools such as David Braben’s Raspberry Pi, that computer studies can be an inspirational and creative outlet. We need to tell these stories to keep inspiring fresh talent and revive our industry.”

We’ll already begin to see a return to form in the UK games industry within the next couple of years, Anthony predicts, thanks to the recent Livingstone report identifying one of the key reasons why we’ve had such a horrendous brain drain in the first place. And it, again, involves our schools. “We have kids today using phones, apps, computers, but no widespread obsession to code or get under the hood and explore the possibilities of technology.

“There’s also a huge age gap in the number of people applying for IT and programming jobs. We have people in their late thirties going for these jobs - barely any twenty-somethings. This decline in programming interest didn’t happen overnight, it literally happened over a decade. And it’s because of the way computer teaching was changed in our schools. It almost became secretarial and boring.”

Beyond education, though, Anthony feels that he has very few chances left to offer a proper salute to the Miles Jacobsons, Olivers, Andy Paynes, David Brabens, Jon Hares, Pickfords and Stampers of the games industry. “We’re talking about an era that started 30 years ago, and if we don’t document it now and get to all the key people that made this wonderful era happen, we may never get the chance.”

If you would like to help contribute to the funding of From Bedrooms to Billions, please consider making a pledge on the official indiegogo page.

For Part 1 of SPOnG's interview, click here.