The UK video game industry is on the skids and will drop to 5th place worldwide, according to a report by Britain's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.
According to gamesindustry.biz, the UK game industry, currently in third place behind the US and Japan, will be surpassed by Korea, Canada and China next year. (GP: by our math, that would make the UK number 6). The NESTA report cites a shortage of qualified game industry workers in the UK as well as a lack of global scale game publishers. Financial conditions and poor online game development are also contributing to the gloomy outlook.
NESTA CEO Jonathan Kestenbaum commented:
UK videogames producers are recognised to be amongst the most innovative in the world. Our recommendations offer ways that the Government can boost the power of this sector so that we maintain our strong global position.
The generous tax breaks on offer from other countries are resulting in a mass exodus of some of the best talent in the UK. In order to put a halt to this, the UK needs to wake up to the value in this sector and beat these foreign incentives with our own supportive measures.
Among NESTA's proposed solutions are:
- streamlining tax credits for R&D
- focus on developing skilled game industry workers
- matching tax breaks offered by rival nations
- pushing the game biz to do more in the online game arena