If you've ever played a video game, you've probably played one made in the UK. From the breath-taking creativity of Monument Valley and LittleBigPlanet, the grand strategies of Total War and Football Manager, the exhilaration of F1 and Forza, the glorious exploration of Elite, the joy of Lego and Worms to the freedom and sophistication of Grand Theft Auto and Batman, the British have a genius for making games.

We have made world-class games for nearly 40 years, but the studios that make our games face massive challenges in raising the money needed to develop games, fighting low public and media recognition of games' impact on our culture and economy, and real difficulties accessing the skills to keep our games world-class.

British games contribute well over £1 billion to the country's economy every year but government funding for the art form that is games has been negligible. Some still question whether games are even an art form. In this day and age!

Many of the most influential people in games, finance, the arts and education believe that it's high time games had a single national public agency to champion games. This new agency will address these challenges by funding the production of cultural games, backing cultural projects like games festivals and heritage, and sourcing cutting edge skills through online training.

The www.britishgamesinstitute.com is a proposal backed by over 500 games, arts, finance and educational organisations, as well as both trade bodies TIGA and Ukie.

But it won't happen unless politicians understand how important games are to UK people like you. We need your help to persuade government to fund the British Games Institute.

Please sign up now to support British games culture and fund the BGI.