The Tiga ‘Triple Play’ Strategy - Our latest Government News

Yo! Jan already gone and GDC is looming. Come to the UK lunch reception at GDC (you’ll need to register) in the Moscone Centre on March 6th. EA’s David Gardner is guest speaker register alongside Tom Arundel of Introversion. You can also use the UK meeting facility on the floor of the expo if you’re in need of some private space.

Meanwhile the Culture Minister Shaun Woodward has called for a games academy – but only if the industry pay for it. Some hope! And the French government have announced tax breaks worth up to 60m euro over 2 years for games. Some hope too! The European Commission is actually holding an inquiry into the whole issue of tax breaks for games and may well rule that these and some existing breaks in place prior to the French initiative are illegal. It really makes you wonder sometimes what sort of industrial policy we advocate these days? At present it lets Canada apply market distorting measures to lure thousands away from high cost Europe, the US to give more than is popularly portrayed for the same whilst good old Europe always plays by the free market rules even if no one else does. In April some UKTI/DTI research managed by Tiga will comment on the UK’s current competitiveness on this front.

Nonetheless, we have an extremely supportive Minister and this year is the year that if we are going to get any assistance from government, we better do so. The problem is answering ‘what does the industry want?’ Tiga and ELSPA often get asked on behalf of their members and we need to focus on ensuring you are all engaged in the current debates and help turn these into orderly displays to government departments.

So, what does industry want? Tiga has taken the initiative and come up with the Tiga ‘Triple Play’ Strategy for the development side of the industry. Anyone interested read on - we very much need your input to get the details right. We are inviting the regions to hold lunches to discuss this with Tiga people and if this is not possible Fred Hasson will call anyone interested to feed in ideas.

The ‘triple play’ are three critical success factors – Skills, IP Creation, and Technology, which we believe can keep the UK’s games developers at the front of the pack even in the face of market distorting competition from abroad.

Skills – this agenda is large but we have identified 2 areas the industry needs now – production management/leadership, and a ‘finishing school’ for ‘games’ course trainees. We believe that these areas can be the forerunners to a fully fledged Centre of Excellence.

Technology – no one can doubt the impact Renderware had on the market for console builds. The UK has an excellent track record in technology as some Japanese publishers commented at the London Content, Outsourcing and Middleware Market. We need to capitalise on this and share experiences with mainstream computer programming as we started to do at a meeting with IBM last week.

IP Creation – is something that we all talk about and it is harder to develop and keep IP these days so we are proposing a new IP fund and have talked to potential investors in the private sector.

In the next couple of weeks Claire Maddelena (who is back with Tiga) Stephanie and I will be in touch to ask Tiga members to respond to a questionnaire we are sending out soon, and we will be arranging lunches or phone calls with Fred to discuss details of the triple play. Representations on these issues from non-members are also welcomed.