UK Govt Puts Figure on Video Game Funding

Patrick McFadden (Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills; Wolverhampton South East, Labour) has told the world how much UK regional development agencies have given to the video games industry. Basically, move to the North East would be the guidance to take from these most recent figures taken from 2007-2008. Also, avoid the Luddite territories of the South of England and the West Midlands.

Here's the breakdown (with caveats at the bottom):

North East (ONE) - £471k
North West (NWDA) - £166k
East Midlands (EMDA) - £164k
London (LDA) - £121k
Yorkshire (YF) - £99k
East England (EEDA) - £62k
South East (SEEDA) - £0
South West (SWERDA) - £0
West Midlands (AWM) - £0

Excuses were made for the poor performers as follows:

1) "AWM does not directly support the 'video games' industry but has provided £800,000 in support to the development of the 'Serious Games' sector in the region."

(2) "SEEDA and SWERDA have no programmes that specifically fund the video games sector. To identify the funding that has been provided from broader programmes would incur disproportionate cost."

So, in short, for an industry with the potential to generate millions in income and jobs galore, the support offered amounts to: £1,083k.