TIGA Publishes Manifesto for the Scottish Video Games Industry 2016 - Seite 3

Steve Cartwright, Head of Video Games Sector Group, Henderson Loggie Chartered Accountants, Dunee: 

"Scotland is already a significant industry player but has potential to really punch above its weight when it comes to games development. That won't happen unless Government is prepared to give companies the capital, confidence and skills required to grow into global success stories.  As business advisors we use our sector expertise to guide companies through the various stages of growth and ensure their business model fits their ambitions. There is no doubt that a Scottish Video Games Fund and the commercial support recommended by TIGA would deliver the boost needed for growth."

Summary of TIGA's Proposals  

1. A Scottish Video Games Fund (VGF) should be established in order to improve studios' access to finance, stimulate new content development and IP generation. The VGF could make grants or loans available to games businesses on a pound for pound, matched funding basis. The Scottish Video Games Fund could be managed by Scottish Enterprise or by Creative Scotland.
2. The Scottish Government and Parliament should encourage the UK Government to enhance Video Games Tax Relief. Additionally, the Scottish Government and Parliament should monitor the number of Scottish games businesses benefiting from the Relief and encourage more Scottish games businesses to take advantage of Video Games Tax Relief.
3. The Scottish Government and Parliament should encourage the UK Government to increase the amount of money that a company can raise via Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) investment from £150,000 to £200,000 per annum. This reflects the rise in development budgets required to make internationally competitive games.
4. The Scottish Government and Parliament should introduce a Growth Accelerator Programme to promote commercial advice and investor readiness programmes to games developers and to connect them with finance providers in order to maximise their prospects of commercial success.
5. The Scottish Government and Parliament should ask the UK Government to introduce a pilot Training Tax Relief (TTR) for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), initially in the creative industries. TTR would operate in a similar way to the existing R&D tax credits and would enable SMEs to offset expenditure on training, Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for staff and education outreach activities against corporation tax.
6. The Scottish Government and Parliament should encourage the UK Government and Migration Advisory Committee to add specialist roles to the Shortage Occupation List. The additional roles include (but are not limited to): Game Analyst, Senior Game Artist, Senior Game Designer, Senior Producer, Engine Programmer, Machine Vision and Software Tools Engineers). This will enable games businesses to address skill shortages in highly specialised roles.
7. The Scottish Government should ensure that there is a relatively high level of investment in higher education as a proportion of GDP. Additionally, Scottish universities and developers should continue to work closely together to maintain and to enhance the quality of courses (e.g. by teaching business skills), to promote knowledge transfer and to manage industry placements.
8. Scotland's universities should consider setting up Games Development Incubators to promote start-ups and to foster games studio clusters.
9. UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) and Scottish Development International (SDI) should enable more UK video games businesses to maximise their export potential. Additionally, UKTI and SDI should identify, engage and persuade more major non-UK games development and publishing businesses in the world to invest in Scotland.