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Tiga, ELSPA Launch New UK Industry Media, Government Campaign
by Eric Caoili
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May 28, 2008
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UK trade association Tiga (The Independent Game Developers Association) has partnered with the ELSPA (Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) and other UK development studios for a campaign, termed 'Games Up?', to promote the country's video game industry to the government, parliament, and the media.
The campaign seeks to highlight the opportunities that the video game industry offers to UK's economy and society while at the same time warning policy makers of competitive threats which could potentially hinder the industry if ignored. Other companies supporting Games Up? include Activision, Blitz, Codemasters, Eidos, Electronic Arts, Exient, Frontier Developments, Microsoft Games Studios, NCSoft, Real Time Worlds, Sony Computer Entertainment and Ubisoft.
Earlier this month, Tiga called on the British government to adopt tax breaks similar to those implemented in Georgia, which recently announced a new law giving a 30% tax break to television, movie, and video game production studios working int he state. Tiga has long argued that similar tax breaks are needed in the UK, following long standing government help in Canada, France, and elsewhere.
To motivate lawmakers, Tiga noted that the UK was the third largest producer of video games in the world until Canada's government began providing "massive" subsidies to its games industry, pushing the UK into fourth place. The association also pointed out a 15% fall in science graduates over the past decade, resulting in skill shortages for the UK video game industry.
Said Tiga CEO Richard Wilson: “Our industry faces challenges that can no longer be ignored: in particular, heavily subsidised competition from abroad and skill shortages at home. Tiga will work with other key players in the video games industry through the Games Up? campaign to argue for a tax break for games production and for measures to improve the quantity and quality of graduates relevant to the games industry."
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How many companies out there have any sort of program to help courses raise the bar? Having talked with various companies I haven't met a single developer that does. The thing that's going to give us higher quality graduates is to get them doing things with actual game creation before they graduate.
If you try to get the government to institute measures regarding the quality of something that they have little/no experience working with, you're going to get nothing but a headache and a mess out of it. Get people who actually know what constitutes quality to help schools institute ways to get us the quality that we need. Those people are the industry, not the government. Yes, there are a couple of companies out there that try to help, but the vast majority of us need to get off our collective butts and do something other than whine and complain.