UKIE details £1bn growth plan for UK games industry

Trade body UKIE believes the nation’s games industry has the potential to grow by £1bn over the next five years – providing the Government gets behind it.

At an event for both UKIE members and Parliamentary representatives in London tonight, the organisation launched The Blueprint for Growth report, a study conducted independently by Olsberg SPI on UKIE’s behalf.

The report reveals that 21m people in the UK play video games in some form, and almost half – 44 per cent – of those are female. A further 22 per cent are aged between 45 and 64.

There are around 1,900 games companies based in the UK, spread across twelve clusters such as Dundee and Leamington Spa. 95 per cent of these are small-to-medium enterprises with “clear potential for growth”.

Together, they represent a UK games market that is currently work £3.944bn.

You can read the report in full for free by clicking here.

The Blueprint for Growth also lays out five recommendations that will enable the UK games industry to grow by an estimated £1bn by 2020, encompassing everything from funding to talent retention.

Firstly, UKIE calls for both UK and EU funding initiatives to fully recognise the contribution of games to the community of creative industries, urging for similar treatment to the funding support available to the film industry.

Secondly, more support is requested for regional growth, FDI and exports across the UK, allowing games businesses around the nation the same opportunities for success. This is followed by the need to “grow, attract and retain the best talent”, ensuring that promising games creators aren’t tempted to work overseas.

UKIE also urges the government to “create the best tax environment and digital marketplace to do business worldwide”, opening up the possibility of attracting investment from abroad as well as the ability for games firms to forge partnership and release titles in other nations.

Finally, the trade body recommends more effort is put into promoting “games-as-culture” and highlighting the success stories and innovations that originate within the UK.

The report was based on consultations with more than 40 stakeholders from the games industry and the government, identifying prime examples of success stories as well as market failures that threaten potential growth.

“The Blueprint for Growthreport raises a number of important questions when considering support for the games sector in the UK in the years ahead,” said Chris White, MP for Warwick and Leamington, and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary for Video Games. “As the MP for an area with a rapidly expanding games industry, I know just how important it is to support the sector.

“I hope that the Government will take note of the findings of the report and that we can all work together to ensure that the UK games industry grows on the world stage, taking as much of the projected 7.9% annual growth rate in global revenues as possible.”