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The UK video games industry is declining in the face of competition from other countries. A major problem that the industry is facing is slow broadband speeds, which are making gaming companies uncompetitive and resulting in falling profits.

According to companies like Eidos and Codemasters, as most of the popular games need proper broadband to function, this situation needs to be remedied immediately by the government.

Chris Deering from Codemasters, Ian Livingstone from Eidos and David Braben who created the hugely popular game Elite, came together at the Westminster eForum. The participants discussed the needs of games industry which should be included in the government’s pre-budget report.

The government’s 2Mb by 2012 broadband programme was criticised by Keith Ramsdale, vice president North Europe for Electronic Arts. The fact that the UK government does not follow the practice of giving tax breaks to game developers, which other countries like France and Canada do, was also cited as a reason for the decline in the industry.

Though UK is the third largest producer of games it is the film industry here which avails of £100m tax credit every year and the industry representatives are calling for similar support to the gaming industry.

For information on your ISP and corresponding broadband speed, try using the broadband check from Broadband Genie to get a snapshot of your current download and upload speeds, it also has an independent guide to the broadband packages suitable for gamers.