EA's Keith Ramsdale

I'd say it's a conversation that happens all the time. All the time. The fact of the matter is that you want to make the best game with the best talent - we have DICE in Sweden, and we all know Sweden isn't the cheapest place to be. We have Criterion in the UK, and that team just made the best Need for Speed game ever created, and sold the most units it ever has in the period up to and through Christmas.

So to be honest it's much more about having the talent in the right place. It doesn't mean that we don't want to have those conversations about the right economic environment to work in - of course we do - but it's coupled with where the talent goes.

Back to what Mr Kotick said, I think just to hone in on one headline soundbite isn't really where EA's position is. Our position is for a long term, sustainable industry, based on talent and an economic environment that allows growth of that development base.

Well, it's a big territory. From a commercial standpoint we need to be here - when you've got a country that's established like the UK... I've been working here for EA for 14 years, and you start to learn and understand how to navigate the consumer environment.

What we've understood and seen was that the consumer came to retail really late - but you can see from the charts that they did come in the end.

The government is made up of human beings, and they'll get wound up just like anybody else when they see stuff that isn't appropriate being flashed around. You have to treat them like anybody else - I don't think the way to do that is by having sensationalist headlines; the way to do it is by having grown-up conversations with them face-to-face on what the real issues are, understand what their issues are, and figure out together how it works.

Because what the government needs to see is a case where, if they're going to hand over money, what does it get in return for UK PLC? Therefore the industry has to prove to them what that return on investment would look like - and that's exactly the approach that UKIE and its member companies are taking.

They're big people, they're used to being bashed by the press. I don't expect they pay too much attention to it, if I'm honest. What they're really interested in is sitting down and having proper conversations with the companies in the industry - big or small - and really understanding what faces them.

Just rattling on about R&D tax credits all the time doesn't serve the purpose. You have to show what the return on investment for that would look like and why. It's very important - I'll say it again - to link skills with fiscal investment.

I think you'll find that if you look at the consistent messaging that's come from UKIE to the government, you won't see any mixed messages there.

The fact of the matter is that you can flog a dead horse - that's a pretty good term for this. I'll refer you back to the finance packages that we're talking to government about. There are a number of items on there that we're talking about, and a year or two ago R&D tax credits would have been at the top of that list.

It's still on there now, but it's further down, because it's clear that it won't happen - but it's not gone away, we're still talking about it on a regular basis. But if we just keep going in every time we speak about R&D tax credits, they're just going to stop engaging with us.

What they want to know is, what alternatives are there? And that's why we're having a proper conversation with them.