Government tax breaks would create 1,400 new jobs for the UK video game industry within five years, says game developers group TIGA.
The organization, which has been fighting hard for government incentives in recent times, made its claim in a report sent to the UK's Department of Culture, Media and Sport late last week.
The document, titled Investing in the Future, lamented the loss of skilled British developers to nations in which government incentives for video game studios already exist:
Games would need to pass a cultural test, scoring against criteria of European heritage and game locations, languages, innovation, narrative, and location of development and key development staff. 44% of UK made games profiled in an exercise for the report passed...
With 60-80 titles benefitting per year, the tax measure would assist UK game developers without distorting the larger European game development market...
The Games Tax Relief is expected over 5 years to create 1,400 new jobs in the studio sector, increasing investment by games studios by 146m, direct and indirect annual tax revenues by 133m and GDP contribution by 323m. By year 5, for every 100 of investment by government in the Games Tax Relief, the industry will invest 176.
In a forward to the TIGA report, Lord Puttnam (left), Vice-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Computer and Video Games Industry, gave his strong support to the notion of a tax break:
For far too long the UK video games industry has been effectively taken for granted. To ensure the continuing success of this pre-eminently creative sector, I can only urge the Government to support TIGAs case for the introduction of a form of Games Tax Relief, as set out in this report.
Comments
Re: UK Game Devs Group Says Tax Break Would Create 1,400 ...
Why do I have this sneaking suspicion it would be cheaper for the them to hand out 1.4billoin in 1 million dollar checks to 1400 people than to give millions in tax breaks that might or might not make 1400 jobs 0-o
Until lobbying is a hanging offense I choose anarchy! Stop supporting big media and furthering the criminalization of consumers!! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
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Re: UK Game Devs Group Says Tax Break Would Create 1,400 ...
Somehow I don't think that will happen.
Like Government Support helps allot, but if the government support is required only to games that have a cultural status or being educational for kids who are not old enough to play Videogames, then all this will be doing is getting government support to make games that nobody wants to play except to just please the people who don't play videogames at all.
Lets face it, until a gamer becomes the Prime Minister, UK games industry is never going to get any real help. And that is just really sad.