The UK and Irish Game Industries - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 99

6 The UK and Irish Game Industries

Aphra Kerr

This chapter will look at the origins, present state and key policy issues
facing the games industry in the United Kingdom (UK), including Scot-
land, Wales, England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (R. of
Ireland); home to memorable titles like Grand Theft Auto , Tomb R aide r ,
SingStar and Little Big Planet and middleware technology by companies
like Havok. This chapter explores the origins of the industry in the 1970s
and 1980s, the impact of globalization in the late 1990s and the emergence
of an industry discourse focused on international competition, upskilling
and labour shortages over the last decade.

INTRODUCTION

From the 1980s the UK emerged as the main console and PC development
centre in Europe, whereas the R. of Ireland is better known as a site for sup-
port and servicing. In both things are changing. There is a sense currently
that things are just “taking of ” in the R. of Ireland in terms of employment
in the games industry whereas in the UK the discourse is more pessimistic
with various reports signalling a decline in terms of employment and com-
pany numbers from a perceived “heyday” in the 1980s and 1990s. Neither,
I will argue, is correct.
This chapter attempts to situate the changes being experienced within
these countries in the context of the global political economy of the games
industry (Johns 2006, 177). It also tries to navigate the particular infl uence
of the creative industries policy discourse, which developed in the UK in
the late 1990s, and which ostensibly focuses on creativity and intellectual
property (IP) creation but in practice is often reduced to a discourse of IP
ownership, skills and nation branding. This chapter will explore briefl y the
history of the games industry in the UK and Ireland before examining the
available statistics on the contemporary industry and fi nally discussing a
number of issues which national industry trade associations are focusing
on. This chapter is based on interviews and analysis of relevant research,
reports and press releases.