The trade body representing the video games industry in the UK has called for greater financial support for the sector.
Tiga said there was a real opportunity for a bank to establish itself as the lender of choice to a sector which contributes more than £1 billion per annum to UK gross domestic product.
The call was made after a report by the Big Innovation Centre (BIC) found one-in-three innovative small firms which had sought finance between 2010 and last year failed to access the funding they required.
Getting the necessary cash together to produce and market a new gaming product has long been a recognised issue in the industry and has dogged the development plans of a number of small games firms operating in the Dundee cluster.
Paddy Sinclair of Proper Games at Seabraes in Dundee said the cash requirements of many development projects fell between two lending stools.
The company has now chosen to develop its games with the assistance of AppyNation, a Besta-backed developer-led consortium of independent UK studios which offers an alternative to the traditional publisher model.
Mr Sinclair said AppyNation had helped Proper Games get back on its feet after a difficult trading period, but problems with access to finance remained a major issue for the industry.
“Getting access to the kind of funding that you require is difficult for a lot of small developers,” he said.
“A lot of (development) budgets are in the £20,000-to-£50,000 range which is below the level at which a lot of organisations will consider lending, but above the level where you can just walk into a bank and ask. It is an uncomfortable middle ground.
“We have hit this one fair and square in the face a few times as there are not many ways to raise this kind of money. Angel investors are nice, but there’s not a lot of them around.”
The BIC study was based on data from 11,000 SME firms.
Tiga chief executive Dr Richard Wilson called for easier access to funding for development studios.
He said, “This report confirms once again that high technology and innovative firms find it comparatively more difficult to access bank finance than other firms.
“This has led many high technology and innovative firms to operate without bank finance. In the case of the UK games development sector, a survey of development studios showed that less than a third had a bank overdraft and only 12% had a bank loan in 2011.
“There is an opportunity for a bank in the UK to establish itself as the premier supporter of high technology and innovative firms.
“Bank finance will not be the principal source of finance for high technology and innovative firms as such businesses typically require more than just debt capital, but the banks could play a larger and more positive role than is currently the case,” he added.