The British government has released a new report on the Scottish economy, in which it claims that its videogame industry has a value of precisely £0.
Furthermore, the report states that there are only 200 employees in the Scottish videogame sector and zero students studying game degrees at Scottish universities. The report was commissioned by Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprises, both of which are government groups, and conducted by DC Research.
Given the number of videogame companies in Scotland (including Rockstar North, Denki, Proper Games and Red Radiant) the research has clearly failed in its attempts to quantify both its value and employment numbers. As far as student numbers are concerned, courses at the University of Abertay Dundee have produced legitimate videogame talent.
This wouldn’t really be a problem, except that the government organisations involved oversee Scottish cultural elements and future funding decisions could well be based on information present in the report.
