Slashdot tipped a BBC article about the (allegedly) parlous state of the UK games industry.

The discussion on Slashdot is very interesting while the news item is actually a lot of special pleading by the games industry: universities are rubbish, we need tax breaks etc.

I’m a refugee from the games industry. For over ten years, until 2000, I ran a game development studio called Intelligent Games. I worked with some great colleagues and produced some work that I am still very proud of.

There are lots of things wrong with the industry and graduate skills may be one. In my experience, though, there was a much bigger skills shortage on the management and business side. I confess my own shortcomings here too - I started the company when I was 18 - but lack of experience is only part of the story.

Some publishers had business ethics that would make Tony Soprano blush. Individual producers (the people we dealt with at our publishers) were often unprofessional, lazy and incompetent. The level of cynicism and bullshit was unbearably high.

In the eight years since I left the industry, I have never looked back. All my clients today are professional, dedicated, ethical and hardworking and, more important, they’re all good at their job. I like working with them and I respect them as individuals and managers.

I think the games industry is suffering from the British disease. Individual talent and genius thwarted by lousy management, an anti-business culture and cynicism. It is typical that the industry body cited in the BBC news article is called “Game’s up”.

It’ll go the way of the British car and aviation industry, the Mini and Concorde. And the British space programme (yes we had one of those too).

On a more positive note, today I learned what a tourbillon is.