TIGA's Richard Wilson
On tax relief, the role of education and the rise of the self-publisher
I'm sure we can manage both at once. I don't think it's a question of either/or - indeed, I think that the more that developers can demonstrate their economic prowess and contribution to the economy, almost paradoxically, the people in government and in other creative sectors, begin to appreciate the cultural value of videogames - the two almost go hand in hand actually.
It would be very hard, not impossible, but very hard for GameCity to be talking about the cultural value of videogames if there were no UK developers. I think people would say, 'we can admire it, but why is a part of our heritage'? The two go hand in hand, I think it's very important, and this is where TIGA's key role is, ensuring the industry is economically successful, but clearly there's a very important cultural spillover.
Videogames are a cultural part of our lives now, they're embedded in our society - over 70 per cent of people play videogames. Game terminologies and icons are spreading across the media, all kinds of media. So I think it's a very positive development, and I think both of those aims can be achieved simultaneously, both the cultural aspect and the economic aspect.
Well, I'm not on the Activision board, so it's very hard for me to make comments on situations like this, I haven't got access to all of the information that Activision has, so I don't think I really can comment on that particular studio.
What I can say, in terms of the wider picture is this. Videogame development is a risky business. Our figures from the survey, looking at the figures from the last two years, show that 131 companies have closed down. 145 started up, but it shows great volatility, great change in the market. I know that other sectors of the economy can have a degree of churn with start-ups and closures, but I do think our industry seems to be particularly afflicted by this issue - it's a very risky entertainment business.
So I wouldn't comment on the Bizarre issue, but what I would say is that we need to have a broad panoply of measures to make sure we have an environment which is very favourable to game development. That's why we've been arguing for games tax relief, because we believe it will help encourage more overseas publishers to invest in the UK.
It would help indigenous companies, game developers and game publishers. We've been arguing for enhanced R&D tax credits to enable developers to make more use of existing research and development tax credits, and we've also, as we touched on a moment ago, been arguing for better provision of education and skills, to make sure that we have the graduates that the industry needs.
In brackets I should say that I do feel that we do have fantastic workforce - I think it's second to none, actually, but we do suffer from some skill shortages. That's not so much the fault of universities, it's more the fault of government, I feel, for not incentivising more students to study maths and other stem subjects.
Well I'm glad to say it's actually pretty good. There's an awful lot of consensus among the TIGA board, and I think, more broadly among the TIGA membership. We've given ourselves this clear goal - to make the UK the best place in the world to do games business.
Aiming for a higher goal to inspire the entire game development sector, and I hope the wider publishing community, both overseas and in the UK, to back this goal - I think that allows some issues which may cause some conflict or disagreements which exist in any trade association, to be papered over. In fact more than papered over, cemented over.
I'm not saying that there's complete unanimity - there's no complete unanimity in any trade association about anything. But I do believe that at TIGA we've been very successful in keeping people together, keeping people on board focusing on some key priorities. In fact our membership has grown by over 100 per cent since 2008, which I think is a testament to the fact that we have united people and got them working towards a common goal.
Well, there are a lot of really exciting companies out there. I think Mindcandy, Moshi Monsters are very exciting, they've got a great track-record, I think they're doing incredible stuff. Jagex is an extremely exciting company, they win awards all the time. Monumental got into the Sunday Times top 100 list of technology companies - it's fantastic that a company like Monumental Games should receive such a plaudit. I will say this, obviously, I think Rebellion do a fantastic job, they're a very well respected developer. Hello Games - they're obviously impressive.
It'd be wrong in a way to do what I have done and single out companies, but I do believe that those companies, as well as companies like Blitz, Eutechnix, the Kuju group, Rockstar - they're all very impressive companies. What we have now is not only some of the older companies doing a fantastic job, but also the newer games developers emerging, producing content online in particular, which are also extremely exciting.
I think you're going to see great things from nDreams, for example. Also there's a new start-up this year called We R Interactive, headed by David Rose. Really interesting game development companies which are moving to publish their own games, create interesting content - my job is to lobby the government and provide services directly from TIGA in order to help those companies grow, and that's what I'm going to focus on.