KATHERINE ELLIS, group director at Boston Multi Family office reports back on her visit to Britain’s biggest gaming convention

I attended ICE Totally Gaming with my colleagues Alex McNee and Roxy Sheeley last week and this year the annual eGaming trade show grabbed more headlines than ever!

The BBC, The Guardian and The Daily Mail all ran with stories about the sexist behaviours which take place and specifically the use of promotional girls to market certain products.

The UK gaming regulator also called for sexism at the conference to be stamped out and issued a statement ahead of the event.

While I will admit the gaming industry continues to have something of a diversity problem, I believe it only differs from industries like finance and technology in how visible it is.

It also needs to be seen in the context of progress: over the many years we’ve been attending ICE, we’ve seen a steady progression towards more creative marketing that is less reliant on promo girls.

Plus, much more importantly, we’ve seen progress in the actual representation of women in key roles: we may have further to go, but that doesn’t mean progress isn’t being made. So was our time at the show all about ‘pole dancers and wall to wall alcohol’ as claimed by one newspaper…. No, not for us.

The event welcomed more than 30,000 pre-registered guests, many of whom travel from all over the globe to meet with businesses involved in this sector.

The Department for Enterprise organises an impressive exhibition stand and many local private sector firms from all areas of the industry join together to support the initiative with the goal of promoting the island’s strengths in all aspects of eCommerce.

We’ve been attending the show for the last six years and this year one thing I particularly noticed was the maturity of the market.

There seemed to be far fewer unfunded entrepreneurs with a big idea for a new product and we are continuing to see consolidation with plenty of M&A activity.

I personally think this fits well with the island’s offering to this industry.

We are a well-regulated and well respected jurisdiction in the online gaming world and we can offer tried and tested business and infrastructure services to operators, payment providers, software businesses and many more.