Tiga Takeout: March 2007

GDC wins

With E3 in limbo until its new format has been tried and tested, it was no surprise to see even more attention paid to GDC — more expo stands taken, more attendees, and some new innovations all helped GDC take a step closer to being the major industry event in the global calendar — and so it should be.

There is no doubt that if the industry wants to kick that chip on its shoulder as an âOutsiderâ in the media and entertainment industries as David Braben suggested in his talk, then this is the place to highlight the creativeness and ingenuity of the people who make the games, and where the potential of the industry as a new medium can be fully appreciated by society at large. The marketing honchos who drove E3 into an ever decreasing upward spiral of competitive outspending had better sit up and take note of some of the messages coming out of GDC: making money in the industry does not necessarily mean fighting turf wars with other publishers for who has the best shooting or racing games; making money will increasingly be with those who interpret the changing needs of users; and there is an unique opportunity for the balance of power to shift back towards creators through various possibilities, not least on-line self publishing.

Even if the the stands at GDC of the Nordic countries and Benelux looked superior, Brits were strongly apparent on the biggest of platforms at the show and in the most important of global positions — Phil Harrison, Chris Satchell, Neil Young to name but a few and not forgetting the rapidly rising star of Media Molecule. Furthermore, the UKTI organised meetings with SCEA and the Tiga lunchtime event to meet publishers were well attended and much appreciated by all.

Meanwhile, Tiga continues to build a strategic position to put to the government in the run up to the Creative Economy Green paper due sometime in the summer. To do this we have included information and questions relating to the proposals in the questionnaire to all members and are holding consultative meetings in Birmingham and Newcastle (tbc) open to all. More will be organised if the demand is there.

Ministers tell us that games are the most important of the creative industries (probably to all the others too!) and yet the Tony Blair Special Keynote we were invited to, on the importance of the creative Creative Industries on Tuesday 6th March while we were all at GDC, was conspicuous for its omission to mention the games sector! And this week the French government awarded Peter Molyneux a special award for services to culture.

There are also current consultations on the Public Service Publishing fund proposal by Ofcom which was featured at Edinburgh Interactive last year, and there is the ongoing research into the UK games sector competitiveness and barriers to investment which will be published in April, which Tiga is managing with funders UKTI and the DTI.

The research on Barriers to investment and the opportunity to tell DTI and DCMS Ministers what we want them to do to help the sector comes at a timely moment with the announcement of Eidos setting up a 350 strong studio in Montreal lured by the tax breaks on offer there. Although the order books of most members appear to be full for the best part of the next year, most will have experienced the downturn following a new console round, and with the 壉s value making business harder than before, and publishers and soon developers (if gossip is anything to go by), starting to consider Canada there should not be any room for complacency.

For those of you based in the south check out the âNorthern Exposureâ event supported by Tiga at York Racecourse on May 10th at which many important topics will be discussed — you should be there!