TIGA's Richard Wilson

Well I do think it's healthy for the UK economy to have overseas publishers investing in the UK - but I also think it's important to have indigenous publishers investing in the UK. Jagex would certainly consider themselves as a developer, first and foremost, but obviously they do publish their own games and because we're working with them on project Ignite, we're hoping to get more game developers to get their games published.

One of the exciting things about our research - the figures we've released today, and also the evidence we released in the summer, is that in a way we're having almost a rebirth of the publishing industry - but from a development base in the UK.

So our research back in the summer showed that over 60 per cent of the developers we interviewed back then were already publishing their games in some form or another. So I think the answer to the question is that it's very valuable and important to have overseas publishers investing in the UK but also to have a strong indigenous domestic publishing base.

I think that's happening through Jagex, through Blitz, through Team 17 - who are all moving into self-publishing and who are all helping smaller companies to self-publish as well.

I think if I had those figures I'd be a very happy man. We have tried to collect such data, actually, and it's really really hard to access it. What I do think is that I've been struck time and time again by the propensity of UK developers to actually export their content.

We're sitting here now in the Institute of Directors. The IOD used to stand out because it's membership had a very high propensity to export - I think around seventy per cent of IOD members would export their products. Whereas the typical rate of export in the UK is typically around a third of small businesses.

When you come to the development sector, around 90 per cent are exporting their games. You'll be very familiar with that but I don't think the policy makers are.

So I think - I don't know what the precise figures for the balance of payment are, and I wish I did know because it would be a fascinating figure - but I do believe that this is an industry with a great propensity to export, it's got great potential to increase exports. It's another reason that the UK government should be behind us in providing tax relief - because it will power the industry forward still further.

Well I think it's swings and roundabouts. Obviously we were delighted before the election, to have games tax relief included in the March budget. I was delighted at the time because all four political parties - the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, obviously the Labour party and the Scottish National party - all backed games tax relief. I was delighted that we had that cross-party support.

Clearly, since the election, the coalition government has broken their pre-election promises - the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both explicitly backed games tax relief before the election, they've broken those promises - which we're very disappointed about - but we remain optimistic.

I think we have a very strong case to make, and we know that there are Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs who are sympathetic to the argument. So ultimately this doesn't have to be a party political issue, it should be a cross-party political issue. So I think the answer is swings and roundabouts. There have been some positive changes and some negative changes.

Well, with regards to Train2Game, it's not possible that anyone has approached any company with a Train2Game qualification, or to be more precise, a TIGA diploma - because TIGA is the awarding body for Train2Game. No one has graduated yet, so no one can possibly claim to have had a full Train2Game experience.

It's possible that people might have done it for a few months and then tried to get a job, but no one has yet actually graduated from the programme. If people are telling prospective employers that then they're giving a false fact - no one has graduated.

With regard to the wider point about how to ensure that the industry has a well-trained workforce, I think that's right on TIGA's patch. When I was appointed as CEO of TIGA I thought it was really important that we encourage universities and colleges to join TIGA. I wanted to strengthen industry academic links and I think we've done that - we now have about 25 universities and colleges that are TIGA members.

We're very keen to disseminate best-practice information on how to teach, how to improve course amongst the universities and FE colleges, and indeed in Train2Game and other private training suppliers. We're also very keen to make sure that developers themselves strengthen their links with education providers.

I've a lot of sympathy for colleges and FE providers, because they do want to have relationships with developers and the games industry and sometimes it's very hard to facilitate those connections because developers are busy running their businesses - they're under a lot of pressure. I see TIGA as having a very important role here, we're going to maintain our activity in this space - we think education is really critical for the industry and we think it's critical that we have a role in it.

I think the best trade organisations do try to do that - bring industry and training providers together.