UK culture minister Ed Vaizey has told an audience at the Develop conference today that games are becoming as culturally important as film, the Guardian reports.
The Conversative member of parliament commented “When I took on this role, I was completely blown away when I found out about this industry; it was just sitting under politicians’ noses. There was all this talk about whether [games] promoted anti-social behaviour, when in fact we were looking at an industry in which Britain was one of the world leaders, and which attracted people at the top of their game in all sorts of fields, from the arts to computer science to physics.
“It’s also clustered – it’s not one of those industries that’s based in London, it’s everywhere from Brighton to Dundee. So it was easy for me to become a champion of the games industry, and push for games to take their rightful place alongside some of the more vocal creative industries like film.”
Vaizey also produced some impressive stats on the UK audience for games, noting that there are 33.5 million players in the country. “UK consumer spending on games is almost £4bn," he said, "the games industry has contributed almost £1.5bn in GVA (gross value added) to the UK economy, and almost 25,000 jobs. I hope it’s the case that tax breaks are helping projects go ahead that wouldn’t otherwise have happened."
Last year, the UK introduced a new tax policy which allows studios based in the country to claim relief up to 25% of their production costs. 67 games have qualified for tax relief during the first year, amounting to a total of £180 million ($281 million), and Vaizey added that most of the money had been spent in the UK or Europe.
Discussing the cultural impact of games, Vaizey said “The British film industry – and this has been a passion of mine – has expanded its remit to support the games industry. Games are taking their rightful place alongside the film industry as one of our most important assets.”
Vaizey was appointed Shadow Minister, or opposition spokesperson, for Culture back in 2006 before becoming Minister for Culture when the Conservative government came into power in 2010. Noted UK game developers include Rockstar, Rocksteady, and Lionhead.
