Games and interactive entertainment trade body, UKIE, has today published its Access to Finance paper as part of its pre-budget submission to government. Many interactive entertainment businesses in the UK are struggling to develop and grow through not being able access sources of finance. UKIE’s Access to Finance Paper outlines how the government can help support the games industry financially and therefore help to give it the level playing field that it needs to grow in the UK.
KIE’s Access to Finance paper calls on government to explore new ways of making finance available for the games and interactive entertainment industry, such as: making crowd funding operate efficiently in the UK; extending the public service remit to include video games; and offering tax benefits linked to skills. The paper also calls on government to review existing sources of finance to make them better suited to the needs of the games industry, as well as fully supporting the call for the introduction of a tax break for video games development.
UKIE is also using its Access to Finance paper to call on government to support the development of a new Computer Science and Information and Communications Technology teaching infrastructure through the funding of Initial Teacher Training and Continuing Professional Development for teachers.
The full recommendations made in UKIE’s Access to Finance Paper are:
- Improve the UK’s current regulatory environment to allow investors, content producers and crowd funding platforms to take maximum advantage of crowd funding. (More detail on this proposal can be found in UKIE’s separate Crowd Funding Report – published last week and available here).
- UKIE continues to call on the government to introduce a tax break for video games development, along similar lines to the film tax relief, and fully supports fellow industry body, TIGA’s, Tax Breaks proposal.
- Change the rules governing the use of Venture Capital Trusts and Enterprise Investment Schemes to make them better suited for use in connection with the games and interactive entertainment industry.
- Change the rules regarding Seed Enterprise Investment Schemes to make it truly effective.
- Introduce a copyright box to incentivise IP creation and exploitation.
- Further clarify and reform the R&D tax credit system to make it easier for companies in the games and interactive entertainment industries to benefit.
- Link tax benefits to skills, possibly by linking to apprenticeships.
- Support the development of a new Computer Science and Information and Communications Technology teaching infrastructure through the funding of Initial Teacher Training and Continuing Professional Development for teachers Consider a further extension to the public-service remit so that it includes support for relevant games and interactive entertainment products and services.
- Extend the public-service remit to include interactive entertainment products and services.
- Continue to help provide access to finance through channels such as prototype funds.
UKIE’s Access to Finance paper for the UK’s Games and Interactive Entertainment industry is available here: ukie.org.uk/content/ukie-policy-paper-access-finance.
UKIE’s Access to Finance Paper follows the publication last week of UKIE’s Crowd Funding Report, which outlined how the UK’s current regulatory environment can be improved to allow investors, content producers and crowd funding platforms to take maximum advantage of crowd funding investment models. UKIE’s Crowd Funding report is available herewww.ukie.info/content/ukie-crowd-funding-report-proposal-facilitate-crowd-funding-uk-february-2012.
UKIE Chief Executive, Dr Jo Twist said: “The games industry is solution-led and highly innovative. UKIE’s Access to Finance paper and our Crowd Funding report, published last week, seek to match this approach by looking at innovative new solutions that government can apply, to help the UK’s games and interactive entertainment industry get much needed access to finance.”
UKIE Deputy Chair and Chair of the Government’s Creative Industries Council Access to Finance Group, Ian Livingstone said: “The global games industry continues to grow and yet the UK has lost ground in recent years to countries where governments actively support their games development companies via tax incentives, access to finance and providing a skilled workforce. UKIE will continue to present new solutions to improve the business environment for the games industry and we look forward to working further with Government to move from recommendation to implementation.”