TIGA Publishes Proposals to Help Start-ups and Small Development Studios

By November 21, 2011 Press Releases

TIGA, the trade associationrepresenting the UK games industry, today published a new report, Supporting Start-ups in the UK Games
Development Sector
(TIGA, 2011), in advance of the Government’s Autumn
Statement on November 29th 2011. TIGA’s report sets out four
proposals for the UK Coalition Government to adopt in order to encourage the
growth of more high technology, high skilled, export focused start-ups and small
businesses in the video games development sector:

  • Introduce a well-targeted tax
    break for games production, with a higher level of tax relief for small
    studios, in order to reduce the cost of game development and to enable the
    UK video games industry to compete on a level playing field.
  • Establish a
    Creative Content Fund to provide match funding on a pound for pound basis
    up to a maximum of £100,000 in order to improve access to finance for
    small studios.
  • Extend the scope of the Small
    Firms R&D Tax Credit to include the costs of IP protection, design
    costs and premises costs.
  • Address skill shortages by
    providing tax relief for expenditure on workforce development in small
    studios.

TIGA’s plans for kick-starting
the small studio sector follows the publication of data on Tuesday showing that
annual growth in the third quarter of 2011 was lower in Britain than in every
EU state apart from Cyprus, Greece and Portugal.

Dr. Richard Wilson, TIGA CEO, said:

“The UK’s recent economic growth performance has been
disappointing. Now is the time to promote new sources of growth in export
focused, high skilled and high technology sectors such as the video games
development sector. TIGA, the only trade association run by developers for
developers, has proposed the adoption of four policies to kick-start the growth
of more start-ups and small businesses in the game development sector.

“A well-targeted tax break for games production, a
Creative Content Fund, improved Small Firms R&D tax credits and tax relief
on training for would give a major boost to the engine of job creation and
innovation in the games industry – small studios.”

Oli Christie, CEO of Neon Play, said:

“As
the trade association run by developer for developers, TIGA is campaigning on
the issues that matter to small development businesses like my own. TIGA’s
policies would give a powerful boost to our sector and so help rebalance the UK
economy towards high skilled, high technology businesses with a focus on
exporting.”

Ends

Notes to editors:

About TIGA:

TIGA is the trade association representing the UK’s games
industry. The majority of our members are either independent games developers
or in-house publisher owned developers. We also have games publishers,
outsourcing companies, technology businesses and universities amongst our
membership. In 2010 TIGA won two business awards including ‘Trade Association
of the Year’ from the Trade Association Forum. In 2011, TIGA won six business
awards including ‘Trade Association of the Year’ from the Trade Association
Forum and ‘Outstanding Organisation’ from the Chartered Management
Institute. Richard Wilson won the
‘Leadership Award’ from the Trade Association Forum and the ‘Outstanding
Leader’ award from the Chartered Management Institute. TIGA is an Investors in
People organisation.

TIGA's vision is to make the UK the best place in the world to
do games business. We focus on three sets of activities: political
representation, generating media coverage and developing services that enhance
the competitiveness of our members. This means that TIGA members are
effectively represented in the corridors of power, their voice is heard in the
media and they receive benefits that make a material difference to their
businesses, including a reduction in costs and improved commercial
opportunities.

For information about the UK’s growth performance, see the
Financial Times, November 16th 2011

For further information, please contact Dr Richard Wilson, TIGA CEO on:
07875 939 643, or email
richard.wilson@tiga.org.

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