I was on holiday last week, enjoying the almost total lack of sun, and having a week long geekasm at the E3 coverage. Imagine my surprise, then, to come back to work at Escape to discover hardly a mention of all that awesomeness on the blog. This is not, I thought to myself, acceptable. So have a peek at this!

If you're anything like me, you'll have a favourite developer, and mine just happens to be Valve. For those of you who don’t know Valve, it's an entertainment software and technology company that has been around since 1996. Since its beginning, it has produced an overwhelming amount of award winning games, with the most recent including Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, Portal 1 & 2, Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike. It is also the developer of leading-edge technologies including game engine Source, and premier online gaming platform Steam.

Want to know more about getting into the games industry while also getting some inside info from the biggest independent games developers? Then make sure you head to GameCityNights.org.

Attention all gamers, developers and insomniacs… TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry, are running a GameHack event on the 28^th and 29^th April, 2012 at Pinewood Studios. This is an overnight 'hackathon' where participants have 24 hours to develop an original game concept. Working within a team this is a great opportunity for participants to network with peers as well as some of the best developers in the UK games industry. As an added bonus, there are some really awesome prizes up for grabs. Check out the range of prizes and more about the event here. 

Is it any wonder that the games companies in the UK have a hard time? So many companies going out of business already this year (and it's only March) and seemingly no government support or tax breaks. Whilst computer games feature as heavily in many people's lives as film, I suspect that few know about the games BAFTA awards.

Well, it is red carpet day for the games industry on Wednesday 16th March 2011 and you can view the awards online starting from 8:30 PM. Will the awards ever make it to live TV? OK maybe not, we don't generally know these faces as they are not on the big screen. But give a thought for the awards, the games and the technology these guys produce - they need everyone's support... It's not like we don't play games right?

Has your favourite game been nominated? Check out the nominees here. For me in the family section it has to be Kinect Sports but good luck to everyone who has been nominated! 

Is everyone tired of the comparisons by now? Maybe it's just me...

So much talk about which is better, how much physical space you need to play Kinect vs continued calibration for Move - lag and response and on and on..

As part of this year’s London Games Festival, we are going to be hosting a free TIGA event in our studios. If you want to get an insight into self-publishing your games, come along and chat with the pros.

I’ve seen in the news this week that Scottish MP Joe Fitzpatrick has been defending Dundee’s videogames industry after the Scottish Parliament was urged to recognise the fact violent games are easily obtainable for children.

As I’m sure some of you would have seen, last week figures were released showing that revenues from UK videogames hit £1.73 billion last year – a whopping 44% higher than what was generated from UK films during the same time. If you consider some of the huge cinema releases we saw last year, it’s no mean feat that it was only UK television that made more money than the video games industry. Impressive stuff, but is it really a surprise? I’ve said before that playing videogames is becoming a family past time – games consoles are now found in the family living room rather than banished to a “geeky” teenager’s bedroom. Gaming has a far reaching appeal, and I doubt that the growth of the gaming industry will cease any time soon. Interest in our games course, particularly since Sony veteran Simon Fenton came on board, has continued to grow. It’s great to see this exciting industry gaining rightful recognition – not just in terms of increased sales, but in the demand for creative talent which boosts the development of video gaming in the UK. Would you rather spend two hours playing Modern Warfare 2 or watching Blackhawk Down?