Our friends at Escape Studios – dealing with careers in Computer Graphics – got in touch with the results of their latest survey: unlike other professions, Computer Graphic artists don’t seem to be driven by money: many feel that getting anything for doing the thing you love is worth it. How true: I did the thing I love last night, and I ended up paying her! The truth is the creative industries, like computer graphics, seem to be bucking the trend of graduate recruitment has all but dried up. Graphics and after-effects is one of the few industries where the UK is still considered to be a market leader, and there’s plenty of different roles you can concentrate on. Have a look at Escape Studios, and the courses they offer, as a place to start.

The video game industry is moving to Level 5 on Credit Crunch, a game every retailer is being forced to play, as consumers turn to fitness workouts, musical jam sessions and fantasy worlds to take their minds off the gloom but still stay at home. Microsoft has reported November as its biggest sales month in Europe for the Xbox 360 console – sales rose 124% on a year ago. Microsoft says a key factor in its recent success was the reduction in price of its basic 360 “Arcade” console in September to $199.  Game sales in October rose 35% on 2007’s total. With more than 75m Wiis, Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s in the market, games software publishers are also feeling the benefit.

No, I’ve never heard of Vivendi either. They’re the French company that is now seemingly Europe’s biggest entertainment group. Among their portfolio, they own Universal Music, the world’s biggest record company, pay-TV station Canal+, growing games maker Activision Blizzard, and France’s second largest mobile phone company, SFR – significant as France is the only place left in the developed world where the mobile market is a growing one (Vodafone would love to get their hands on SFR). Universal has flummoxed the music industry by getting digital download sales to outstrip the decline in CD sales. Some feat.  They’re growing gauche, doit et centre, so if you’ve got bad breath and a short temper, get on the Eurostar and get in there!

In the music industry, if someone illegally downloads a track, you roll over and sack a few staff. Fittingly, when it happens in the computer gaming industry, you go to war. 25,000 people in the UK can expect a knock at the door from Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters demanding a £300 out of court settlement, and a court summons if they refuse to pay. The firms have appointed Davenport Lyons to deal with the individuals for breach of copyright, having identified them by asking internet service providers for personal-details of file-sharing website users (hmmm…that sounds like one for the lawyers in itself…). Its estimated that 6m people in Britain alone share games illegally. This week Isabela Barwinska became the first person the download vigilantes caught up with. She has been ordered to pay £16k to Topware for downloading Dream Pinball. Nightmare.

New figures show UK music firms are earning a growing share of revenues from activities other than the selling of CDs and digital downloads - licensing songs, merchandising, tours and Guitar Hero help grow sales. Since online music stores entered the mainstream in 2004, consumers have bought more than 200 million downloads but firms will make increasingly more money from activities such as licensing its music for commercial use, such as TV adverts, films and games. Companies are also pinning their hopes on so-called “360 degree deals”. They see merchandising, touring, use of artists’ logos and sponsorship as potential money-spinners. You knew all this - you heard it here first with my new best friend Mattieu from Warner Music.