Saving the UK Games Industry 128
arcticstoat writes "Following the cancellation of games tax relief in the 2010 UK budget, the UK games industry is now feeling increasingly threatened by Canada, France and some US states that offer tax relief to their games businesses. What's more, it looks as though the R&D tax credits scheme offered up by UK Chancellor George Osborne in last week's budget speech is nowhere near enough to enable UK-based games studios to compete internationally. 'In terms of magnitude, games tax relief would be much more generous,' says Dr. Richard Wilson, CEO of the UK games industry's trade association TIGA, in this in-depth interview about the need for games tax relief in the UK. 'The proposals we've been campaigning for would allow games companies to basically put in a claim for a reduction in corporation tax of between 20-30 per cent on given projects. The R&D tax credits are much smaller in magnitude – we're talking somewhere around 4-5 per cent.' Is this enough to enable UK game studios to compete with the likes of Canada? 'Good grief, no,' says Wilson, 'absolutely not.'"
Re:What games? (Score:4, Informative)
Tomb Raider, Hitman, Commandos, Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Thief, Timesplitters, and Fear Effect. [wikipedia.org] That's just one studio.
Re:What games? (Score:2, Informative)
One studio that, as a different AC pointed out, was bought out by Square Enix, a Japanese corporation.
What my fellow AC neglected to point out is that Eidos only has a single studio left in the UK. Oh, and of those games you list, only Tomb Raider and Timesplitters are British.
The rest are:
Hitman - Denmark (IO Interactive)
Commandos - Spain (Pyro Studios)
Deux Ex - US (Ion Storm)
Legacy of Kain - Canada (Silicon Knights) / US (Crystal Dynamics)
Thief - US (Ion Storm)
Fear Effect - US (Kronos Digital Entertainment)
Oh, and that reminds me:
Tomb Raider, since 2006 - US (Crystal Dynamics)
So... yeah.