While Keith Vaz being mocked in absentia at this week’s eForum roundtable on the state of the UK games industry was a humorous aspect of the proceedings, there were also some deep insights to emerge from the meeting as well.
Jas Purewal attended the forum and wrote up a couple of the more interesting notes on his website. Among them, a comment from Shadow Culture Minister Ed Vaizey (pictured) that if the Conservative party comes into power this year, there would most likely be no movement on creating tax incentives for game developers for two to three years. Vaizey reasoned that a focus on correcting the current recession would take top priority and push any talk on incentives to the back burner.
Vaizey also disclosed his hope that TIGA and ELSPA could work together more closely in the future, or even merge.
More coverage from the forum on the topics of tax breaks, digital distribution and education can be found on this page of Purewal’s site.
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Vaizey: Conservatives in Power Would Delay Game Tax Breaks
January 22, 2010
Shout box
Zen: Just to let ya know...you called it the "Xbox 260" in the backwards compatibility article lol.05/21/2013 - 4:26pm
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Zen: @PHX Awesome, I will hit those up after class tonight. Going back to college finally! :) My kids have had a blast telling ME to do my homework now lol.05/21/2013 - 4:19pm
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PHX Corp: @Zen I sent you a friend request on both PSN and XBL, just a heads up05/21/2013 - 4:16pm
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Zen: I noticed it with the football players when EA showed off Madden as well.05/21/2013 - 4:11pm
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Zen: Is it just me or is call of duty hitting the "uncanny valley" with their nicely modeled faces and dead looking eyes? I found it distracting and seemed actually "less" real to me lol.05/21/2013 - 4:10pm
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james_fudge: it sounds like if you have an HD reciever you'll be able to use it with a pass-through cable... not 100 percent sure yet05/21/2013 - 2:41pm
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james_fudge: happening now http://majornelson.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-architecture-panel/05/21/2013 - 2:20pm
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E. Zachary Knight: Some reading material for Microsoft on its used games blocks. That will hurt the console more than helping. http://ezknight.net/?page_id=20505/21/2013 - 2:18pm
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james_fudge: yeah good luck with over the air TV05/21/2013 - 2:12pm
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E. Zachary Knight: But what if I want to only watch over the air tv? I don't subscribe to pay tv. I never will. If that is a requirement, then MS wasted 45 minutes telling me how great TV will be.05/21/2013 - 2:08pm
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james_fudge: EZK it will depend on your provider, just like HBO Go i'd imagine.05/21/2013 - 2:05pm
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PHX Corp: @IanC there's also a chance that those titles might be Xbox one exclusive, but it's too early to tell afaik05/21/2013 - 2:03pm
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IanC: @E. Zachary Knight - MS certainly got the checkbook out for EA, so no surprise on how negative they are over the Wii U.05/21/2013 - 1:54pm
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MaskedPixelante: So now I have to wonder, how many of EA's games are skipping the PS4 because of their pro-used stance?05/21/2013 - 1:53pm
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E. Zachary Knight: On the TV front, does the XBox One require a cable/satellite subscription or will I be able to use my over the air channels?05/21/2013 - 1:48pm
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E. Zachary Knight: Also, that name was not one of the options on our poll.05/21/2013 - 1:42pm
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E. Zachary Knight: This presentation also shows why EA has been so negative about the Wii U. They have had a massive hardon for the XBox One forever.05/21/2013 - 1:42pm
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james_fudge: two female presenters05/21/2013 - 1:40pm
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E. Zachary Knight: Quote: Are developers forced to create games that have these online features, and are thus not playable offline? They are not, Xbox exec Whitten said to Wired — but “I hope they do.”05/21/2013 - 1:40pm
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E. Zachary Knight: The Wired article I linked to earlier has a different story. While it will be possible to play offline, that is a game to game thing, not standard. http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/05/xbox-one-analysis/05/21/2013 - 1:39pm
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Comments
Re: Vaizey: Conservatives in Power Would Delay Game Tax ...
The key word here being "delay" instead of "ditch". At least they're being reasonable with it by saying that they do have plans, but they have to be put on the backburner for the time being.
Re: Vaizey: Conservatives in Power Would Delay Game Tax ...
Wait, conservative control making tax cuts unlikely? Is this one of thouse pants=underwear, rubber=eraser!=condom things?
Re: Vaizey: Conservatives in Power Would Delay Game Tax ...
Wouldn't tax incentives for developers help with the recession? Give incentives, new jobs are created. It doesn't sound like a bad thing.
Re: Vaizey: Conservatives in Power Would Delay Game Tax ...
Well, you do need the money to back up those incentives. So if fewer people are working, the government gets less income tax money. If fewer people are working that also means that they have less money to spend and thus the government gets less sales tax money.
So it really should be top priority to get some stability back to the economy, but part of that is incentives for businesses to start hiring again.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
http://www.theeca.com/chapters_oklahoma
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: Vaizey: Conservatives in Power Would Delay Game Tax ...
Among them, a comment from Shadow Culture Minister Ed Vaizey (pictured) that if the Conservative party comes into power this year, there would most likely be no movement on creating tax incentives for game developers for two to three years. Vaizey reasoned that a focus on correcting the current recession would take top priority and push any talk on incentives to the back burner.
In other words, If the conservative party comes into power, they're going to focus on fixing the current mess first instead of just compounding it. Sounds like a good idea to me.