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Clemens Wangerin has worked in the games industry continuously for the last 30 years, most of it in Liverpool. In that time, he has worked in AAA game studios, start-ups and VC-funded innovation companies.
He’s helped raise several million in equity investment, delivered more than £250 million in product revenue for Publishers, and led the development of acclaimed IPs across console, mobile and virtual reality (VR) platforms.
Clemens is unashamedly proud of the fact that the UK games industry continues to “punch above its weight”, driving cultural exports and innovation – particularly in areas like immersive tech and AI. In particular, he says that Liverpool City Region stands out for its “collaborative ecosystem and appetite for experimentation”, supported by a growing pipeline of talent from local education providers, initiatives like Gamechangers and accelerators.
“Still, to scale nationally and globally, we need to better connect the region’s strengths to external capital and publishing infrastructure,” he insists.
Clemens’ career includes leadership roles at Sony PlayStation, where he oversaw the Wipeout and Formula One franchises, through to heading up vTime, an immersive technology company in the Baltic Triangle, recognised in 2016 by Gartner as a Cool Vendor.
Today, he runs Digital Advisors Ltd, supporting digital and creative businesses with commercial growth, and serves on several advisory boards helping to shape the future of the tech and games sector in the Liverpool City Region.
“Liverpool City Region has a very strong heritage in games, with its roots emanating from the iconic company Psygnosis, founded in 1984,” he said. “But even before then, in 1983, the SX Spectrum Classic Manic Miner was developed by Matthew Smith when he lived in Wallasey on the Wirral. So that’s over 40 years of history, which you’ll be hard pressed to find in many other places in Great Britain.”
Clemens points out that, over the years, the region has evolved into a resilient cluster of indie developers like Milky Tea, Skyhook and Starlight Games, multinational corporations like Sony, Avalanche Studios, Keywords and Tencent, and digital innovators like Scenegraph Studios, Citrus Suite and Draw & Code.
However, Clemens says he’d like to see greater alignment between the region’s creative sectors and public sector stakeholders, especially in ensuring that policy, funding, and education are more responsive to the needs of digital-first businesses and to underrepresented communities.
He said: “Personally, I’m committed to championing social mobility within our industry, not just as a moral imperative but because it leads to better business outcomes and creative work that’s more reflective of the world we live in.”
The games industry veteran believes in Liverpool City Region’s potential, which he says has “strong creative talent”, a growing number of startups and increasingly supportive institutions, but what’s still missing is scale capital and the structural maturity to take more companies from promising to globally competitive.
“That includes more experienced executives who’ve scaled businesses before, continued support to access international markets like the recent DBT Trade Missions to GDC and SXSW, both attended by several LCR-based companies, and more robust commercial infrastructure within the region, ” he says. “There’s also a cultural piece: we need to empower founders to think bigger, earlier, and back that ambition with sustained support that spans beyond short-term funding cycles.”
In the next 12 months, Clemens is focused on helping a new games studio following their first major release, Storror Parkour Pro, which is coming out on 31st March, and is also working with a business in the VR streaming space called Beam XR. He’s hoping to support early-stage founders through Baltic Ventures and continue to work with studios like Nomad Games and Hole In The Sleeve to grow their IPs and commercial impact.
All in all, Clemens strongly believes that Liverpool City Region has all the ingredients to become a world-class hub for games and immersive technology, but warns that it “won’t happen by accident”.
“It will require a coordinated effort, long-term thinking, and bold public-private partnerships,” he insists. “We should be using our size as a strength. I’m optimistic, but I also believe we need to raise our collective ambition and be unapologetic about putting creative technology at the centre of our industrial strategy.”
