BBC new ‘Gaming First’ initiative to turn game IPs into ‘bigger franchises’

During his talk at the Develop:Brighton conference, head of digital entertainment and games at BBC Studios Bradley Crooks talked about the BBC’s new Gaming First initiative, which will see the company progress further into game development.

“The BBC obviously is a company that’s traditionally been led from a TV point of view. Games have always been something that we’ve kind of done on the side. But now with that new approach of building franchises, it seems a cool way of delivering [content] to new audiences and engage with existing audiences for our big franchises,” Crooks said.

There are parts to the initiative, he continued: “The first is to have gaming-led content. Doctor Who Infinity would fit into that category. So it’s taking content from our major brands and delivering gaming experiences that actually form part of the canon. It’s not led from TV series it comes to the game first.

“The second [part] is to develop new IPs into franchises. So we’re interested in talking to developers and publishers about taking non-TV IP, gaming IPs or interactive IPs, and building that backwards into bigger franchises.

“And the final [part] is game developer investment. The BBC has been investing in TV production but is now looking outside of TV production to directly invest in development as well.”