EA's Keith Ramsdale

There are many industries that have more than one trade body representing them, and what happens is that each trade body represents a different part of that industry. If you look at the member make-up of TIGA and UKIE, the profile is slightly different. You can have two trade bodies.

My personal reach-out to TIGA - and we do have conversations with them - it's the same thing. Let's build that consistent, pragmatic conversation with government, facing the reality of the economic situation today. And let's make that conversation much more with government, rather than outside of government.

We have good conversations with TIGA - but they have to represent their own members as well.

I would say that it's in everybody's interests that UKIE and TIGA do come to the table together. I absolutely think that's of benefit to everybody, and that in recent times we're seeing that happen more and more. I believe that.

Of course, and you can probably apply that - I'm not a political expert and I'm not here to make political comment - but I know of some cases where the government had to take a different view on the policies they thought they were going to be able to implement because of the state of the economic environment they faced. I don't say that in support or attack on government, merely as a statement of fact - I'm sure they had to change what they were intending to do.

I would have thought it was a relatively easy decision for them to say "Okay, the videogames industry versus something else - it's something that's going to have to go," because it wasn't in place.

It was something that was promised, and we were all disappointed that we were picked out. I think we were disappointed in the way that we were picked out - but if we're all honest and looked at ourselves, I think we probably understand why something that wasn't in place didn't actually go ahead, given everything else.

Do I have sympathy for EA, Activision, or the smallest developer in the UK? Of course I do. It's just how it is.

I wouldn't like to say it should disappear; I would like to see an equitable status between all entertainment industries. It would be wrong for me to call out that the film one should go - it should be equal among all of them. You picked the right example, though.

Are therefore jobs in the games industry less valuable than those in the film industry? Maybe that's a question - and why would policy continue to have that view, given the contribution that the games industry makes?

If you look at what's happening with the film industry, and you look at the growth of HD gaming, and users on new devices such as the iPad, iPhone and online - if you look at the touch points for videogames compared to film, it's vastly different.

It's interesting actually, because people are looking at the growth of the videogames industry and declines based on year-on-year revenues in the market - but what they're not looking at is the overall picture to include all forms of gaming. Mobile, digital, new devices - it's still very much an industry that's on the rise.