TIGA comment

September 23, 2009

TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry, said today that the Scottish Government was right to focus on increasing shared learning between industry, schools and academia and to promote careers advice in science and engineering. TIGA urged the Scottish Government to maintain current levels of expenditure on education and skills and to continue to support investment in Scottish universities, such as Abertay University and Glasgow Caledonian.

TIGA made the comments in response to the Scottish Government’s publication of a blueprint for improving teaching and learning of science in Scottish schools and the publication of the Scottish Government’s budget for 2010-11.

Richard Wilson, CEO of TIGA, said:

“The Scottish Government’s blueprint for science education is sensible. Encouraging shared learning between industry, schools and academia, improving the status of science, promoting careers advice in science and engineering and to disseminate best practice in science learning are all important activities.

“There is already good practice taking place in Scotland in terms of encouraging school children to persevere with science and mathematics. For example, Abertay University has demonstrated the relevance of science and mathematics to school children by showing how important a mastery of these subjects is for a career in games development. Abertay University has profiled video games at the Edinburgh Science Festival, the Dundee Science Festival and through its own Dare ProtoPlay. We need to promote these and similar schemes.

“Scottish video games developers depend on a highly educated workforce in order to compete successfully. The industry relies on highly creative, technical people with skills and qualifications in areas such as design, programming, artificial intelligence, animation, mathematics and physics. Approximately two-thirds of games development employees are qualified to level 4 (first degree or vocational equivalent). Some TIGA members, for example, Realtime Worlds in Dundee, employ an even higher proportion of graduates or the vocational equivalent: over 80% of their development staff are qualified to level 4 or above.

“Unfortunately, the games development sector faces serious difficulties in recruiting sufficient numbers of appropriately qualified employees. We hope that the Scottish Government will continue to

invest in world beating higher education establishments such as Abertay University, which provide first class graduates for video games businesses in Dundee and beyond. If the video games sector is to prosper then we must provide it with a supply of well qualified and skilled people.”

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About TIGA

TIGA is the trade association representing the UK games industry. The majority of our members are either independent games developers or in-house publisher owned developers. We also have outsourcing companies, technology businesses and universities amongst our membership.

TIGA's vision is to make the UK the best place in the world to do games business. We focus on three sets of activities: political representation, generating media coverage and developing services that enhance the competitiveness of our members. This means that TIGA members are effectively represented in the corridors of power, their voice is heard in the media and they receive benefits that make a material difference to their businesses, including a reduction in costs and improved commercial opportunities. www.tiga.org

For further information about Tiga, please contact: Eva Field, Tiga PR Manager on: 07814 039 983, email eva@tiga.org