Dundee’s digital media companies have been chasing new business in America as part of a Scottish delegation to the world’s largest games industry event.
A total of 32 firms and organisations joined a Scottish Development International trade mission to the four-day Games Developers Conference in San Francisco.
It is the longest-running event of its kind in the world and brings together more than 27,000 professionals to discuss issues in the industry, showcase the latest developments and make new deals.
Dundee was particularly heavily represented amongst the Scottish presence, with nine city-based development firms including Denki, Tag Games, Cobra Mobile and 4J Studios making the trip, along with representatives from Abertay University and chartered accountants Henderson Loggie.
The group had hoped to return to a new tax landscape for the games industry in Britain, but the UK Government’s proposal to offer a new relief has yet to be granted approval by the European Commission.
Steve Cartwright, who leads the video games team at Henderson Loggie, was among the delegation which travelled to the US last week. He said it was imperative the proposed games tax relief was given the green light in order to ensure UK-based developers were competing on a level playing field with overseas rivals.
Such reliefs have been in place in other countries for a number of years, and their games and mobile app development scene has flourished as a result.
“The implementation of this new tax relief will be great news for the games industry in Scotland and Dundee in particular, where there are a significant number of games companies,” said Mr Cartwright.
“Countries such as France and Canada where tax reliefs for this sector already exist have seen significant increases in the numbers employed in this growth sector, whereas jobs in Scotland have contracted.
“This new tax relief will go a long way to levelling the playing field, and hopefully will get Scotland back to where it was a number of years ago when it punched well above its weight in the games industry globally.”
Mandy Cooper of SDI said there was great value to be had for Scottish companies by attending events such as GDC, where they had the opportunity to showcase their products to an audience of globally influential people.
She said: “Having so many companies with a variety of products, skills and expertise to showcase what Scotland has to offer has led to a significantly higher level of interest and activity on the Scotland Pavilion stand.
“As well as helping our Scottish companies find new global business growth opportunities at GDC, we’re also receiving a number of positive inquiries from businesses looking at Scotland as a potential location for new business,” she added.