Eidos' Ian Livingstone

Yes, you're right. There's not really more I can add to that [smiles]

A lot of titles have already hit the shelves and there is a deluge planned for Christmas, but I think 2009 will be remembered as the year of 'roast duck or no dinner'. Big ticket titles continue to sell well but many of the smaller titles will probably disappoint their owners.

There's a glut of product and in a discerning market there is no room for mediocrity. To make a suboptimal game with a suboptimal marketing spend is a recipe for disaster. I think we'll continue to see more production resources going into fewer titles supported by even bigger marketing budgets. Publishers are continuing to raise the investment bar, ensuring the mega-franchises will rule.

As far as UK development is concerned, it's a great shame that studios continue to go out of business. There are a lot of challenges for independent studios that do not have multi-title publishing deals in place or do not have adequate working capital reserves.

One of the downsides for those in a weak position is that they are often obliged to give up their IP. The concern is that the UK is in danger of becoming a work-for-hire nation. Many of the best content creators are now owned by foreign companies which see greater value in what we do than we do ourselves.

It's a classic case of British industry, where we don't realise what we've got until it's gone. The UK is incredible at creating world-beating IP but not particularly good at retaining ownership of it. Access to capital has always been challenging in the UK, especially in the creative industries. Our investors and innovators don’t often see eye-to-eye.

As for the foreign companies that acquire our talent and IP, good for them. They see the value and invest accordingly. Take a look at who owns all the major UK-created franchises and play spot the Brit!

As far as Eidos is concerned, it's great for the future of company and the staff in that we have a great partner in Square Enix. Eidos is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of a truly global company, but remains an independent label which is brilliant. The studios and IP portfolio of the combined group is pretty impressive. Going forward, Eidos will continue to generate original IP.

Well, I was very pleased to be part of the Games Up? Campaign where we lobbied as an industry, rather than individual bodies. It was ELSPA, Tiga, hardware manufacturers, all the developers, trade bodies, myself, Rick Gibson from Game Investor - we put forward a pretty good campaign and lobbied hard, and it's seems to be bearing fruit.

But there are so many cases of ministers paying lip service and never actually doing anything with it. Over the years we've seen everybody from Stephen Timms, Tessa Jowell, Patricia Hewitt, Shaun Woodward... there's more. Whether it translates into action this time...? I'm hopeful, but you've got to remain sceptical.

Well, better late than never. You've got to congratulate government if they are in fact going to do something about it - but if they're not, they will pay a price. There's no point in supporting redundant industries if they're going to go out of business. It's a false economy. It's like making candles when the rest of the world is making light bulbs.

We are actually the future - creative industries, the knowledge economy - we are everything that the government actually wants. Creating IP which you can exploit - it's clean, and it matches our inherent creativity, where technology and art come together. We're very good at making games, but let's hope there's still a games industry... because the playing field is not even.

Canada, Europe, parts of Scandinavia, states in the US - they're all offering tax credits, and they have governments that actively support them. Our government has always held us at arm's length because they didn't want to be attached to the negative press that appeared in some of the sensationalist headlines - but others like what we're doing, recognise we're the future, see that manufacturing and financial services are in decline...