Adds that yesterday's Budget will worry studios further thanks to 'increase in overall tax burden'
Tiga has joined the outcry against yesterday's Budget, saying it too is disappointed the Government has not introduced measures to help UK games developers, a sector the trade association calls "one of the country’s economic pearls".
"The 2008 budget contained nothing to help UK games developers enhance their competitiveness in the face of intense global competition. It was particularly disappointing that no provision was made to help offset the impact of massive government subsidies to games developers in competing territories like Canada," said CEO Richard Wilson.
"Games developers will also be concerned by the budget’s slew of worrying economic statistics, including an increase in the overall tax burden."
The comments echo a statement issued by ELSPA yesterday.
However Wilson said Tiga would not give up campaigning and educating the Government on how to better support the games industry: “Despite this disappointing budget, Tiga will continue to encourage the Government to introduce a range of measures that will strengthen UK based games developers, a sector that remains one of the country’s economic pearls. UK games developers are hugely successful in international markets and in the darkening economic climate, game development remains an important source of export income for the UK.
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"The UK is the fourth largest developer of games in the world in terms of revenue generation and the games development sector contributes 30% of the UK’s media exports. The Government must support successful business sectors such as the games development sector if the economy is to continue to
grow through these difficult economic times.”
The government provides R&D tax incentives for companies to exploit in their growth. Are these are the answer to the needed support or are they too little?
Most of your game development is not R&D, therefore at best you'd get 20% of costs back, but in reality it's less than 10%. Plus, you need to spend the money in the first place to get the credits back, so it hardly fills a funding gap...
