Develop 2010: Minister for Culture announces plans to review university game development courses.
Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, has asked two UK game developers to be part of an independent review to assess which university courses best prepare graduates with the skills to succeed in the games industry.
Ian Livingstone, co-founder of Eidos and Skillset’s chair of the computer games skills council, and Charles Cecil, managing director of Revolution and creator of Broken Sword, will be joined by Skills Minister, John Hayes, and Double Negative’s Alex Hope to advise the government on what kind of policies need to be in place.
“They’ll go beyond course titles and into the actual subject matter. They’ll look carefully at how many people find relevant employment after qualification, they’ll look at how flexible courses could be and they’ll look at best practice across the world and how that can inform what we’re doing in this country,” said Vaizey.
Only nine out of 80 game-specific courses in the UK are Skillset accredited, and the minister wants to see this continue to rise.
A video games centre of excellence is already under development at the University of Abertay Dundee, and a major part of this £5 million project is a fund to help start-ups and small companies with new game concepts. Vaizey said these small companies are “vital” to the growth of the industry. With the help of Skillset, this fund is also being used to give talented students opportunities to gain work experience in the industry.
Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton last week, Vaizey praised the games industry for its contributions to UK business and culture. He also pointed out that it has a strong educational pull:
“It attracts graduates in what we like to call the difficult subjects, such as computer science and maths, the kind of subjects we want to see more people studying at school and university.”
Vaizey was present (and referred to by event director, Andy Lane, as “entering the lion’s den”) to addresses the game development community following the government’s recent announcement to reject proposed tax relief for the sector. The UK was overtaken by Canada as the world’s third largest game producer in 2007, and the fact that Canada offers regional tax reliefs has been continually brought up.
However, when questioned by TIGA’s CEO, Richard Wilson, as to whether he would continue to lobby for games industry tax relief, Vaizey said: “To put it bluntly, you haven’t made the case because the Chancellor didn’t accept it.”
Vaizey believes the industry should look to alternatives to tax relief to make ends meet. He recommended new initiatives in the Budget, R&D tax credits, forthcoming consultations on business finance and funding competitions as strategies the industry should consider.
“We have to be more creative and look at other ways in which we can help game developers, particularly as the environment is changing so rapidly in terms of how games are developed, and we need to make external investment more attractive.”
He admitted there has been a change in attitudes towards video games, with a third of men and women in the UK now considering themselves gamers and some politicians now viewing the industry as part of the political debate. He said the reason for this change is that “video games are becoming as essential to the home as television.”
Aaron Lee
Photo: Bastion
Tags: charles cecil, develop, developers, ed vaizey, education, skillset, students
