The UK and Irish Game Industries - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 112

the UK-wide prototype grant-funding service, the Dare to be Digital stu-
dent/graduate competition and the IC-CAVE research centre and subse-
quent GamesLab at the University of Abertay, Scotland. Various marketing
and branding initiatives have also been supported including the “Scot-
tish Games Alliance” and more recently “Creative Scotland”. 17 Regional
branding is one way to obtain European regional development investment
funding. In Ireland a corporation tax rate of 12.5 per cent seems to have
attracted quality assurance and online community support type jobs, and
a new scheme launched in 2010 aimed to fi nancially support indigenous
start-ups in Internet and games companies.
Although the main discourse has revolved around research and develop-
ment and production tax credits to boost production, a secondary focus in
public discourses relates to skill shortages. Again the key players in this dis-
course are TIGA, UKIE, NESTA and Skillset although one or two people,
including Ian Livingstone, seem to have pivotal roles. In 2002 the Spectrum
report noted that although there was development and publishing talent in
the UK there was a weakness in business and project management skills.
This skills gap had become a more generalized skills shortage across all
areas towards the end of the decade. A more recent statement on skill needs
and education is presented in the Livingstone and Hope review Next Gen .
The authors state that a brain drain, in particular of skilled and experi-
enced staf , to subsidized studios overseas is beginning to bite (Livingstone
and Hope 2011, 10). The report calls game workers “talent”, a key pointer
to the wider creative industries discourse, and a neo-liberal discourse that
views education as a factory that produces certain types of graduates to
meet industry needs (Banks 2007). Amongst other things they advocate
the creation of a “talent pipeline” whereby students will be introduced to
computing and other relevant skills earlier in their education.
In the executive summary of the Livingstone and Hope report it is
declared that the authors felt that the “education system was not meeting
the needs of our industries”. Despite the growth in university and third
level game related courses there is still, it is stated, a skills shortage and
it is claimed that many third-level courses have “serious fl aws”. These
involve courses which do not provide hands-on access to current platforms
or do not provide teaching in industry-standard programming languages.
Nowhere is there a discussion of the costs involved in maintaining industry-
standard laboratories or the risk of skill obsolescence if universities or col-
leges were to train their students in specifi c tools and techniques. Indeed
TIGA is now involved in promoting privately of ered distance education
courses through its Train2Game (T2G) scheme and Skillset has been run-
ning an accreditation scheme since 2006 to “accredit” courses acceptable
to the industry. Only nine computer degree courses have been accredited
to date. In Ireland a similar discourse is occurring with articles published
on the website www.gamedevelopers.ie de bating the issues, key companies
like Havok highlighting their dii culties recruiting and the Expert Group