22/07/08 The Edge

The corresponding growth in development is mostly happening outside the UK, due to a formidable combination of factors including high costs, substantial government assistance overseas and a skills shortage.

In October, Frontier joined together with a number of the UK’s other large games studios and trade bodies to create a campaign called Games Up?  to raise raise awareness of our industry as a whole, and to warn the UK government about these issues.

The Games Up?  campaign is a collaboration of major-UK based games development studios supported by trade bodies ELSPA and Tiga. We represent more than 200 companies or more than 75 per cent of UK games development, publishing and service companies.

All of us want to promote our industry, raise its profile in Parliament and the media and promote ways in which we can work with the government.

British Culture

Games are an increasingly important part of British life and often misrepresented in mainstream media. There are 26.5 million interactive gamers in the UK which represents 60 per cent of the UK population now playing games. Only a tiny proportion (2.5% by games, 5 per cent by sales) sold last year were rated 18. The UK has been the source of many new genres, and as games break further into the mass market, we see incredible creativity and innovation from new, often British-made games.

For the past 25 years, up until two years ago, the UK has been the third largest producer of computer and video games in the world, employing more than 22,000 people, with 10,000 creative staff in studios across the UK. Two years ago, we lost third position to Canada whose local governments offer games companies significant tax breaks and a range of incentives to relocate there. Quebec alone has invested £500 million in tax credits to generate an estimated £1.5 billion in inward investment.

As a result an increasing number of UK companies have moved their growth overseas rather than in the UK, some even relocating altogether to subsidised territories like Canada. This has resulted in an uneven playing field for remaining British studios, with a longer term danger of the industry losing critical mass.

With a 20 per cent games production tax credit, like that approved by the EU and already introduced in France, we could create many new, high value jobs, and many millions of pounds in new investment.

In addition, we believe that the industry can create huge value for the country by working hand in hand with government, through closer collaboration with education. The number of graduates and skilled workers with the skills we need is falling, especially in Maths, Physics and Computer Science.

Educational Benefit

The rise of video games degrees at British universities are not helping, as they are failing to equip graduates with the necessary skills to build a career in the industry. Many of these courses are Media Studies courses at their core. Of the 81 UK universities offering video gaming-related degrees, only four are accredited by Skillset – the Sector Skills Council for creative media – and no further accreditations have been listed in the intervening two years.

The industry has worked closely with Skillset to ensure that their accreditation schemes deliver high quality output ready for real world jobs in our development studios, but the lack of accredited courses and slow take up by universities effectively means that 95 per cent of gaming degrees are not fit for purpose. Games Up? and Skillset are calling for more universities to step up to the challenge and join the scheme to ensure that excellent graduates are properly recognised and supported by the industry.

The problem of educational standards and numbers of graduates in key fields is an issue for the country and the economy as a whole.  Our competitors for recruitment in maths and physics is the finance industry; in art and animation it is the film industry. Both are important to the UK. Games Up? is encouraging the Government to work with it to create Centres of Excellence – rather like the London Film School – to improve standards of education, training and qualifications.

We also need more assistance for Skillset to promote the importance of industry accreditation for existing games courses.

The games development sector is a jewel in the crown of the UK economy made up of a large number of creative and highly-skilled people. Without change, we will see more companies opening offices overseas, and ultimately the industry slipping below a critical mass.  We believe the government needs to act now, while the UK industry is at the top of its game, rather than wait for a great British industry to go the way of the British film industry before Government stepped in and gave it a tax credit.

To sign up to our campaign, visit www.gamesup.co.uk and sign our petition.