MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
A new report from TIGA says that the video games industry contributed 1.02bn to the UK economy in 2013.
That’s up from 947m the year before, and resulted in tax revenues of 419m for the Treasury.
The total number of people employed by the sector is up too, from 9,224 in 2012 to 9,896. In addition, the number of people with jobs indirectly supported by video games studios climbed from 16,864 to 18,093.
Annual investment in games studios rose from 427m to 458m.
The growth in mobile and tablet gaming was credited for the boom.
TIGA CEO Richard Wilson declared that the UK games development sector is back on track”, while TIGA chairman, CEO and Rebellion director Jason Kingsley added: Our industry has been through some incredibly tough times over the last five years as the sector has gone through a series of massive transitions, such as from retail to digital distribution, and a console to mobile focused development.
This was all happening during the biggest economic crisis since the depression, and against a backdrop which saw UK games developers competing on an un-level international playing field, with competitor nations benefitting from generous tax reliefs which UK games developers lacked.
Those days are behind us now. The industry is adapting and with the wind of GTR at our backs, the UK games development and digital publishing sector is set to surge ahead.”
