UK games industry

The BBC News report from today (21 ^st September) highlights the importance of the video games industry to the new Government’s plan to create a significant number of private sector jobs. As Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC’s technology correspondent states, the video games sector is ‘becoming one of Britain’s most important industries’ [1].

Commenting on today’s report, Dr Richard Wilson, TIGA CEO, said:

“The games industry has the potential to create some of the private sector jobs that the Government wants to encourage. However, the Government needs to create the conditions for this to happen. To start with they need to urgently introduce Games Tax Relief that would create or save 3,550 jobs and increase and protect £415 million in new and saved tax receipts over a five year period. This tax change remains the number one priority for the sector and is vital in ensuring that the UK can compete on a level playing field with other countries who currently offer tax breaks, such as Canada.

“There are other pressing issues facing the sector as well including the retention and expansion of the SME R&D tax credit scheme, and increasing the number of university graduates in mathematics and computer science in order to tackle the skills shortage facing the industry.

“As the report highlights, Abertay University is an academic centre of excellence for the industry and TIGA praises the contribution that they and other universities and colleges continue to make to the sector.” 

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[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11378852