"I think the UK games industry should be in a much better place," said Gavin Shields, a one-time investor, now COO and co-founder of technology outfit Turbulenz.

"Over 10 percent of the UK industry have lost their jobs over the past couple of years," he added.

And more generally, mobile developers are being crowded out by the sheer volume of releases on the app stores.

"How do users find your game?" he questioned. "I don't think games are sufficiently tested on a wide enough audience before it's too late."

Another way

In this way, he said the ability to turn creativity into a business seems to be the problem, and developers need to be looking for the next opportunity.

Of course, Shields has a solution in terms of development, iteration, discovery and monetisation.

Turbulenz is an HTML5-based platform (focused on Chrome but also covering other browsers) that Shields says offers the quality of console development with an open ecosystem.

It also offers private testing services so developers can release to a small number of users and analyse how they are playing the game before a more general release.

"We're equipping developers with the sort of web tools that have been around for 10 years," Shields argued.

The platform is open so games can be published wherever you want, ranging from Turbulenz's own portal to Facebook, the Chrome store, or other web portals.

Now is the time

Of course, there is a large elephant in the room, and Shields was happy to address it.

"I know HTML5 generates a lot of skepticism. But I believe it's the future. 1.3 billion people can already play our games in the browser."

He also argued that industry skepticism meant that developers should be embracing HTML5 now, before it becomes the standard, hence giving themselves a competitive advantage.

And to further encourage take up, Turbulenz has released its tools to developers for free, without royalties.

It will promote and distribute the best games on Turbulenz.com, taking a 30 percent revenue cut.