TIGA Publishes Manifesto for the Scottish Video Games Industry 2016

LONDON, April 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

TIGA, the network for games developers and digital publishers and the trade association for the UK video games industry, has recommended that Scotland should introduce a Scottish Video Games Fund to improve studios' access to finance and establish a Growth Accelerator Programme to promote commercial advice and investor readiness programmes to games developers. These measures would improve studios' prospects for commercial success and enhance the Scottish video games industry. TIGA made the proposals in its Manifesto for the Scottish Video Games Industry 2016 which it published today, ahead of the election for the Scottish Parliament on May 5th 2016.

The Scottish video games industry is a success story with notable businesses and studios including Rockstar North, 4J Studios, Blazing Griffin Games, Codeplay, Denki, Delta Dna, Ninja Kiwi Europe, Reagent Games, Ruffian Games, Dimensional Imaging and Speech Graphics.

TIGA research from December 2014^[1] indicates that Scotland had 1,050 permanent and full-time equivalent creative staff working on games development in 97 companies This represents 11.1 per cent of the UK's total games companies and 9.7 per cent of the UK's total developer headcount. Scotland's games development sector supports an additional 1,920 indirect jobs. Annually, Scottish games development companies are estimated to make a direct and indirect contribution of nearly £108 million to the UK's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Yet the Scottish games industry faces important barriers to growth:

• Access to finance remains a challenge. According to TIGA's research, 52 per cent of UK games businesses are held back by a lack of capital.^[2]
• Discoverability is a significant challenge for start-up studios, particularly in the mobile and tablet space. The degree of competition in this market means that without an effective approach to discoverability the studio will struggle.
• The industry suffers from skill shortages. There are shortages of senior analysts, producers, engine programmers and above all there are skill gaps in business and commercial skills.