Eidos’ creative director Ian Livingstone has said the United Kingdom has become the hardest financially to develop games, while the Government ”does nothing” to help fix it.
He says that with cheaper labour markets in Asia and subsidy programmes like those in Canada, British developers are becoming easy targets ”by overseas companies”.
”With regard to costs, the UK is now the most expensive country in the world in which to develop. There are naturally cheap labour markets in Asia and also subsidised markets like Canada. The UK has slipped from third to fourth in world development,” Livingstone says in an interview with Develop.
”Given the heritage of development in the UK, this is a tragedy. Whilst the UK Government does nothing, developers will continue to shut down or be acquired by overseas companies who see greater long term value in our talent than we do ourselves.”
Not only is the Government at fault says Livingstone but the Universities are stumbling about too with their decisions on courses available to Britain’s students.
”There is a real skills shortage with not enough graduates coming out of university with the ready skills that studios need i.e. computer science, maths and physics,” he said.
”Too many universities have rebranded their Media Studies courses as Computer Games Studies which results in too many generalist game designers applying for jobs. And they aren’t getting them.”
It’s clear that the UK has been in trouble for quite some time when it comes to the creative industries. The Government has been criticized also for not doing enough to promote the UK for film locations as; again, it’s too expensive for studios to cast their movies on British soil.
”The Government needs to invest in this valuable Creative Industries asset or suffer the consequences,” warns Livingstone.
Click here to read the full interview between Ian Livingstone and Develop.
Source: videogaming247