ELSPA welcomes Tory approach to games

Lasy night Ed Vaizey gave a speech to the London Games Conference where he said a Conservative government would look at ways of helping the games industry. While he did not promise tax breaks he said it was important the UK industry made up the ground it was losing to other countries.

The trade body ELSPA has welcomed Mr Vaizey's comments.

Michael Rawlinson, ELSPA Director General, said: “We welcome much in Ed Vaizey’s speech. His grasp of the economic as well as social and cultural impact of the country’s videogames industry is commendable. In his speech he talked in terms of videogames being a world-beating UK industry with a wide footprint touching on areas from leisure and education to health and defence. He also recognised that we are a ‘hard’ industry, that is to say one with a highly-skilled workforce of mostly graduates.

"Ed Vaizey appeared to share our concern that without solid ongoing support and help from Government there is a real chance of the UK games industry losing jobs, income and standing in the global marketplace. He talked of the need for ‘a coherent strategy of support for the video games industry" and here he is right on the money.

"ELSPA is already preparing strategies that will cover incentives to invest in Intellectual Property, skills development and the general economic advancement of our industry. It is certainly good to know, partly as a result of ELSPA’s ongoing efforts, that increasingly Parliamentarians are coming to understand the many benefits our industry brings to this country – after all, each year we contribute around £1billion to the UK economy alone."