TIGA, the network for video games developers and digital publishers and the trade association representing the video games industry, has written to new Ministers at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, setting out TIGA’s vision to make the UK the best place in the world for games development, games education and games service providers.
It is TIGA’s ambition that the UK video games industry will grow strongly over the next four years, achieving the following by 2023:
- employment in our sector to grow to 18,300 development staff;
- our studio population to grow to 1,000;
- increase in annual investment by games development companies from £818 million in 2018 to over £1 billion in 2023;
- increase in the development sector’s GDP contribution from 1.8 billion to over £2.3 billion; and,
- for the UK to become a globally recognised centre for games education and continuous professional development in the sector’s workforce.
To ensure strong growth, TIGA has called on Ministers for the following policy areas to be introduced:
- retain and enhance Video Games Tax Relief, for example, by increasing the level of relief from 25 per cent to 30 per cent to stimulate further investment;
- introduce a Video Games Investment Fund (VGIF) to enhance studios’ access to finance, promote the development of original IP and encourage studio growth;
- retain and enhance the UK Games Fund, which provides prototype funding worth up to £25,000;
- ensure that the UK’s future immigration system enables games businesses to effectively recruit highly skilled people from overseas.