We already know that the UK government knows less than is useful about the video games industry. So, when Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media and Sport; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour) said last week, that "We have not carried out an assessment of the impact of the recession on the UK video games industry. However, industry evidence suggests that the UK games sector continues to demonstrate remarkable success with total sales of £4.034 billion in 2008, a rise of 23 per cent from 2007," we were a little shocked at the figures being available.

Things rebalanced, however, when Bath Liberal MP, Don Foster asked Mr Simon, " what estimate he has made of the contribution of the video games industry to the UK's gross domestic product in each of the last five years; and what the estimated contribution is for 2009-10?".

Foster was met with this response, "Accurate data on the video and computer games sector is not readily available to the Department, particularly as the sector has not had its own separate Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code. A new SIC code for computer games has now been agreed though it will not deliver data until 2010 at the earliest."

It appears that we're not the only ones irked by the governments glacial approach to sweeping away this ignorance. Richard Wilson, CEO of British developer group, TIGA, has also commented recently that, "TIGA research shows that a typical UK game development business generates 46 per cent of its turnover from the export of games. Our successful video games sector exports games all over the world.

“Unfortunately, the UK Government does not accurately assess the trade performance of our video games industry. The only data that exist is partial and incomplete. Royalties, licence fees and trade in services associated with video games are not identified by the UK Government.

“Knowledge industries like the video games industry could play a significant role in the UK economy in the future. If we are to assess the performance of knowledge industries such as the video games industry, then the UK Government must start to collect accurate data concerning the trade performance of the video games industry."

Can the last developer to leave the country please turn the lights off?