Tax relief for the video games industry in the United Kingdom has been delayed because the European Commission was not able to approve the Cultural Test provisions of the plan, according to this GamesIndustry International report. The Cultural Test requires those applying for tax credits to promote the culture of the UK in various ways.

UK games industry trade groups UKIE and TIGA expressed their disappointment in the news, but were optimistic that the government would continue to be committed to tax breaks for games developers.

When a publisher leaves a studio high and dry in the United Kingdom, industry trade body Tiga thinks that such abandoned projects should be eligible for tax relief. Tiga CEO Richard Wilson said that publishers have in the past left some studios in the UK “high and dry” by demanding large development teams for extended periods to then cancel a project with little or no notice at all.

A questionnaire aimed at developers about their opinions on the issue of copyright and game cloning has been launched by UK game industry trade body Tiga. The survey, located here, offers participants 15 questions on a variety of subjects including whether business has suffered from game cloning, questions about IP ownership, some on licensing and copyright enforcement.

UK video game industry trade groups UKIE and TIGA have submitted recommendations for the cultural test that will help the government decide which companies are eligible for tax relief. UKIE and TIGA shared its proposed recommendations with each other so that they could approach the UK government with a "consistent voice" on the topic. In order for a game to qualify for UK tax breaks, it will have to meet the requirements of a points-based test that focuses on "cultural content and contribution." Projects will need more than half marks (at least 16 out of 30) to qualify.

Rebellion co-founder and CEO Jason Kingsley has been honored by British royalty with an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours list. Kingsley is also known for helping to create UK video game-related trade association TIGA in 2001. He is currently the chairman of the trade group. Rebellion has been in business for 20 years and employs around 250 people.

UK video game industry trade group TIGA announced this morning that it has appointed six new board members from Remode, Ubisoft Reflections, Boss Level, Neon Play, Kuju Entertainment and 4T2 representatives. The new board members include Remode managing director Ella Romanos, Ubisoft Reflections General Manager Giselle Stewart, Boss Level CEO Nick Brown, Neon Play CEO Oli Christie, Kuju Entertainment Ltd COO Adrian Hawkins, and 4T2's Mike Hayward.

UK video game industry trade group TIGA is advising the UK government against any plans to abolish the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The recommendation to abolish the DCMS as part of a tax cut package was part of a recent report from the Institute of Economic Affairs.

TIGA CEO Richard Wilson says that the elimination of the department would save very little money.

Today the British government announced that tax breaks for the video game industry are part of the 2013 budget (thanks beemoh). Chancellor George Osborne announced plans to introduce corporate tax relief beginning in April 2013 for various sectors including video games, animation and high-end television industries. Osborne hopes that these tax breaks will "make the UK the technology centre of Europe."

Rocksteady co-founder and game director Sefton Hill has called on the UK government to offer tax breaks to game studios before it’s too late. Hill says it is time for the UK to support its games studios to match the benefits offered overseas or risk losing them.

"A lot of my friends have moved abroad to get work; there's a real talent drain," Hill said in an interview with CVG. "Montreal is a central place for development and it's mainly because the tax breaks they give are so phenomenal."

According to a developer survey conducted by UK game industry trade group TIGA, only 33 percent of developers in the United Kingdom are working solely on games for traditional retail. Only ten percent of those start-ups surveyed said that retail was their area of focus. The rest, two-thirds according to TIGA, are working on digital or social game properties. TIGA claims that just 33 percent of UK developers now work solely on retail, and based on survey results, estimates that the digital and social games sector will grow by 21 percent every year until 2015.

The trade group representing United Kingdom game developers expressed their concerns about SOPA in a press release issued yesterday. TIGA CEO Dr. Richard Wilson said that the bill worries the UK games industry because they could open them up to damaging legal actions and hurt online games businesses.

According to a survey conducted by Games Investor Consulting, 41 percent of jobs lost in the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2011 relocated to other countries with tax codes and incentives that favored the video game and entertainment industry.

Developers joining the ranks of the UK game industry trade group TIGA will be delighted to hear that the group is hosting two events for indies and mobile studios to recieve free consultation from PR experts. In announcing it, TIGA said the initiative is part of a wider goal of supporting the new wave of independent start-up studios that seem to be emerging across the UK. Some of these new studios popping up are the result of massive layoffs by big studios.

UK video game industry trade group TIGA has launched what it calls an education matching service that will help colleges and universities with speakers from the games industry. TIGA education manager Lorna Evans will oversee the matches.

TIGA has publicly urged the Scottish Government to create a Creative Content Fund to help Scottish developers. The fund would be designed to offer up £100,000 investment to developers for new projects, and allow them to get the money the group invested back once a project starts making significant revenue. The fund would only apply to games where the developer owned the IP as well.

In a guest editorial on the UK version of the Huffington Post, TIGA CEO Richard Wilson ask the British government to give the game industry a break ... a tax break.

UK video game industry trade group TIGA said today that high technology businesses in the region were at risk of a "brain drain and skill shortages," complicated and compounded by the existence of tax breaks in other countries. The group has long sought tax breaks and incentives for the video game industry, but the financial downturn and austerity measures in the UK forced the government to abandon any measures that were on the table at the time.

UK video game trade group TIGA issued a short statement on the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) mathematics results. The group said that the significant increase in entries for physics combined with a rise in the proportion of young people achieving A - C grades at GCSE mathematics was "encouraging," but that the country faces a challenge for achieving similar results for the two-fifths of GCSE students who failed to get a passing grade. A solid background in mathematics is fundamental for students looking to have a career in the game industry.

UK video game industry trade group TIGA proposed today that the UK's Coalition Government should open the Small Firms R&D Tax Credit to promote "a high technology recovery and job creation in high technology industries." TIGA made the comments in response to a "consultation exercise" by HM Treasury on the R&D tax credits.

UK video game industry trade group TIGA has joined forces with members of the European Games Developer Federation (EGDF) to voice its concern that the new EU funding programs planned for media and culture and for research and innovation for 2013 - 2020 do not place "sufficient emphasis" on the video game development sector. The groups voiced their concerns at Gamescom this week in Cologne, Germany.

UK video game industry trade group UKIE announced this week that the London Games Festival has been cancelled this year. This is the first time in six years that the annual event has not run. The group said that the event will return in 2012 to coincide with the Olympics. Further, UKIE promises major collaboration with other groups - such as TIGA - on next year's event to make sure that it happens.

If you want to jump into the business of developing and publishing video games in the United Kingdom, then chances are you'll be attending the GamesIndustry.biz Career Fair. Today event organizers announced that they have secured the endorsements of every major video game related trade organization in the UK. This includes the UKIE, BAFTA and TIGA. The event is part of this year's Eurogamer Expo, which takes place September 22 - 25. The event is designed for students, graduates and others who want to get into the video game industry. It will feature career talks, roundtables and question and answer sessions with game developers from the UK and beyond.

"The Career Fair at the Eurogamer Expo is an outstanding opportunity for industry to reach out to the potential employees of the future," commented Sam Collins, UKIE commercial director.

UK video game industry trade organization TIGA issued a warning today that the video games industry in the region continues to experience a "brain drain of skilled development staff." TIGA said that this warning is based on the results of a new survey of 104 UK games businesses which showed that 20 percent of respondents had lost staff to foreign countries over the previous 12 months.

Many of those highly skilled workers have been lost to Canada because companies there can afford to hire and commit funds to research and development due to generous government tax breaks and incentives.. The Entertainment Software Association of Canada recently said that Canada's industry has been "successful in attracting investment and skilled personnel from jurisdictions like the United Kingdom.."

UK games industry trade group TIGA announced this morning that it has formed a partnership with the European Games Developer Federation (EGDF) to lobby the European Parliament for "improved access to finance for the video game industry." The EGDF has published a Report (Game Development and Digital Growth) which makes a series of recommendations for the European Commission and Members of the European Parliament. TIGA, along with other EDGF members, are pushing several game industry-related proposals to European policy makers in Brussels today.

Those proposals, according to TIGA's press announcement, include the following:

- Recognize video games as a form of cultural expression and make them eligible in all member states for public funding, as is the case with a growing number of non-European countries.

UK game industry trade group TIGA has revealed the first details on its upcoming Casual Games Event scheduled for May 13 in London. The one-day event for casual and social game developers will feature speakers from BBC, BBC Worldwide Games, Autodesk, Channel 4 Education, Microsoft, Mo Pay, Disney, RIM, UKTI, Zylom and key members of the team who created ‘Tomb Raider’, Jeremy Heath-Smith and Adrian Smith.

Dr Richard Wilson, TIGA's CEO, says that the group's vision is to make the UK the best place in the world to make games and that casual games are a crucial part of the UK industry. TIGA’s new Casual Games Committee will support casual game developer members by raising their profile and by generating new business opportunities for them, he added.

TIGA, the UK trade organization representing the video game industry, has added several seasoned industry veterans to its board of directors. Five new Directors have been elected to the board today: Karl Hilton, Chris Kempt, Georgina Mackenzie, Patrick O'Luanaigh and Mark Webley.

Chris Kempt is Managing Director and founder of Kempt, Karl Hilton is Managing Director of Crytek UK, Mark Webley is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Lionhead Studios, Patrick O'Luanaigh is the Chief Executive Officer of nDreams, and Georgina Mackenzie is the CEO of Toytek.

UK trade group Tiga has announced that it has established a new division to support the growing legions of casual and social game developers in the region. The group that represents the UK's game development industry says that the new division can help studios network, develop strategic partnerships, identify trends in the market and offer discounts on software and tools when possible.

The group has also opened a ‘Casual Games Committee’, designed to "support companies creating games of all formats with production budgets between £10,000 and £300,000." Tiga added that this move is a response to “exponential growth in casual gaming platforms" in the region. Tiga members working on a casual game can apply to join, as long as their game's budget is within the previously stated guidelines.

UK games industry trade group TIGA today published a new report called "Powering a high technology recovery: proposals for improving R&D tax credits," which continues to urge the government to improve the research and development tax credit to better support the interactive entertainment industry.

The report focuses on how the R&D tax credits system can be improved for the UK games industry. TIGA says that its proposals for the R&D tax credits would "deliver 60 - 75 percent more value to games studios than the current R&D tax credit regime." This, it says would enable studios to invest more in R&D, generate and retain new IP, and hire more development staff.

TIGA offers the following key proposals:

UK game industry trade group UKIE issued a statement today saying that it was moving on from last week's failed merger talks with industry group TIGA. The group that represents game publishers had tried to negotiate a merger with the group that primarily represented game developers in the UK. Those talks were a wash, with TIGA abruptly walking out over several disagreements. UKIE's board offered its thanks to TIGA CEO Richard Wilson for his time with informal talks.

"The board of UKIE are deeply disappointed that TIGA have ruled out potential talks to discuss forming one trade body to represent the entire UK games industry," read the statement. "We would like to thank the TIGA board for their time and consideration of the matter and their CEO for informal talks and meetings over the past six months".

A Develop report says that negotiations for a merger between UKIE and Tiga have broken down. The two UK-based trade groups representing different segments of the interactive entertainment industry in the region could not agree on how to combine the two groups together into one organization. Develop says that Tiga, the association representing game developers, was the group most interested in walking away from the table.

"Tiga and its board would like to make it clear that we have no plans to merge with any other organisation," the organisation told Develop. "We do not see value in distracting ourselves with talks towards such an end while the games industry faces pressing matters including Games Tax Relief, R&D tax credits, improving access to finance, migration policy, education and skills and IP."