The UK Games Industry Falling Fast

We have known for a while that UK game developers have been struggling. Increases in costs as well as much stiffer competition from overseas have slowly been eroding away at what was once a booming industry.

In a new report out by NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), all aspects of the industry were looked into and it’s not looking too rosy for the future.

This report shows that in spite of its high levels of technical and creative skills and its continued production of world-class games, the UK games studio sector faces important structural weaknesses. They include a lack of global scale publishers, limited access to finance and skill shortages.

These factors constrain the UK’s capacity to generate new games ideas and innovative genres. UK developers are very talented and at the technological cutting edge, but many independent studios have to rely on third party licenses to survive. The revenue flows generated with this business model are insufficient to develop original ideas.

They point out that in the global standing of game developing countries, the UK is likely to fall from third to fifth place.

Reading the report, I half expected it to simply say “jump on the casual band-wagon”, but was actually surprised to see it focus a lot on the idea of generating new, quality IPs within UK studios. The report also suggests that we need to try to keep more of the home-grown talent in the country, but accepts that many “games-specific degrees are a wasted investment by young people keen on breaking into the games industry because so few succeed due to poor training.”

The report concludes with some very solid (ignoring their use of the word “synergy”) advice for the industry and the government. Essentially; get money from the government, spend it on decent games. I just hope the government pay it some notice.

Via: Edge