TOP figures from the gaming community will descend on Bradford tomorrow as the city hosts the first Yorkshire Games Festival.

Much of the five day festival will take place at the National Media Museum, but other partners of the festival include the University of Bradford, which is the festival’s official education partner, and Bradford College, which is the main festival sponsor. Both are hosting events, and have students taking part.

As well as talks and presentations from top names in the industry, there will be a family weekend, where children will get to meet Pokemon characters and take part in Minecraft events, and looks back at the history of gaming.

The university does courses including Game Design and Development, and Computer Science for Games, and students have gone on to work with top companies in the industry.

Dr Carlton Reeve, Head of the School of Media, Design and Technology at the university, said: “We’re delighted to be the education partner of the festival, and we’ve been involved from the very earliest discussions.

“We’ve helped shape the programme to make it really relevant to the gaming community in Yorkshire. We’re running a few of the sessions through the festival.

“Anyone who works in gaming will be excited by this.

“A lot of people wouldn’t necessarily call themselves a gamer, but lots of people play game, often on their phones, even if they don’t think of themselves as a gamer.

“Yorkshire is one of the main areas of the country where the gaming economy is booming. Worldwide the gaming industry is bigger than the film or TV industry.”

“I think that playing games for a disproportionate amount of time can be a bad thing, but games can be used for a lot of different things as well as just for fun, from health, lifestyle, maths and skills development.

One of the events being held at the university is a Game Jam, which will invite teams of game developers to design, develop and create a game from scratch in just 24 hours, from noon on Saturday.

He added: “Yorkshire is a great place for gaming and I hope the media museum continue this festival. It will bring people in from all over the world, so it is a really important event for Bradford as a city and really highlights the link with gaming.”

Students who have studied at the university have gone on to work for major gaming companies like Rockstar, behind the Grand Theft Auto series, Blitz and Sumo.

It is estimated that Yorkshire contributes nine per cent of the UK’s gaming industry.

Highlights of the event include talks by Brenda Romero, who talks about women in the games industry, John Romero, co-creator of classic games like Doom and Quake and Adrian Hon, whose Zombie’s Run smartphone game has become the world’s most successful smartphone fitness game.

DJ Yoda will give a History of Gaming with a special audio-visual show at the Pictureville Cinema on Friday night and family events are being held on Saturday and Sunday.

For the full line up and for more information about tickets, visit yorkshiregamesfestival.com or call the Museum box office on 0871 9025756.