July 15th, 2009 @ The Hilton Metropole, Brighton
The Develop Industry Excellence Awards is the only event which rewards the work done by Europe’s leading games development companies.
October 27th, 2009 @ BAFTA, London
The London Games Conference will take place during the increasingly popular London Games Festival.
DCMS cries foul and asks European Commission to call in World Trade Organisation and check legality of Canadian tax breaks
The UK’s Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport has formally started an investigation into the legality of Canada’s tax incentives for games studios.
According to a report on Canwest News Service’s The Vancouver Sun a Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) spokesperson cofirmed that “the UK government is concerned that state aid offered to computer games companies by a number of federal institutions in Canada may not be compatible with World Trade Organization principles” and has opened a European Commission investigation into the country’s subsidies to see if they contravene WTO rules.
The move follows months of outcry from UK studios that subsidies in Canada are creating unfair competition. According to information collated by trade association Tiga for its Playing for Keeps report last year, the UK slipped to the fourth in the listing of the world’s biggest development countries, knocked down from third by Canada.
Tax incentives are available in a number of Canadian provinces. Manitoba has the most generous – companies can write off up to 45 per cent of labour costs. Quebec is one of the busiest regions for games development in the country and provides a 37.5 per cent tax credit on wages, while Ontario offers a 30 per cent tax credit for small companies, and 20 per cent for companies whose annual revenues are above $20 million.
Since the Playing for Keeps report was published in October 2007, a number of UK studios demanded the Government implement its own tax credits – similar to those available to film-makers – in order to compete.
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However Culture, Creative Industries & Tourism minister Margaret Hodge said that such a credit might contravene EU rules and the Government would rather consult the legality of the Canadian offer via the World Trade Organisation, despite developers saying such a move would take too long or fail.
In the meantime, the European Union has given the go-ahead to tax breaks in France – provided the support games with a ‘cultural’ element – paving the way for other governments in Europe to do the same if they wish.
Clearly, the Government still maintains that the Canadian subsidies are the real threat, and that it should not intervene financially to aid British studios, hence the renewed official move via the WTO.
Guillaume de Fondaumière head of trade association APOM which serves developers in France, says the move is a mistake.
He recently posted here on the Develop site that France’s own investigations already found that “Canada's tax breaks are more or less aligned with WTO policies”.
He said: “APOM and French government services had looked a few years ago at the opportunity to challenge Canada's incentives with WTO. Our conclusion was such a challenge would lead nowhere.”
Instead, he recommended: “The UK should rather join forces with the France (which made the first move in the 'tax break direction' a few weeks ago) as well as other Euro countries understanding the imperial need to save a key industry and convince the European Commission to widen its horizon on the subject and allow all games to benefit from tax credits and other incentive.”
Unsurprisingly the move has been met with derision in both the Canadian press and its government: "Canada fully complies with its WTO obligations," a Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade spokesperson told United Press International.
hmm here I thought US lawmakers did idiotic things....
Instead of answering outrcry from developers in the UK regardign tax breaks with announcements or moves toward tax breaks....the UK government is trying to shut down tax breaks elsewhere?
God I thought the Byron report ( exactly why does a TV personality have any speciality in the science of media and behvaioral impact?) was stupid enough.
But this just smacks of complete ****edness...When the EU approves of France's tax breaks, when other EU nations have tax breaks in place for developers...UK decides to attack Canada's tax breaks?
Huh...wha?
Now this? Is Labour doing that badly? I
Exactly - do they not realise this smacks of desperation? They should stop pointing the finger at places like Canada as enemies and instead point to them as an example of how a tax break can positively effect the games business. Plus, the Quebec subsidy (for instance) has been in operation over 10 years; wouldn't the WTO have intervened at some point during that time? Isn't it a a bit late for the UK to act? And won't going through the WTO take another 10 years? Insanity.
Just the govt stalling while they keep raking in the taxes...
Myself and about 1000 other Artist and SE have been recruited head hunted away from the UK back in 2004 by the Big games companies.... I was unemployed for over a year after the games company I worked for went bust. I got no supprot from the UK companies... and no support from Government. I had one A****ole at the jobcenter say to me that I should not go for interviews outside of London as they didn't want to pay my travel expenses. Told me to take a job at McDonalds... !!! shame was that McDonalds only gave jobs to foriegn workers....
So I say " tough luck UK", "you should have supported your industry when you had one !"
It shows how inflexible labour is towards this and how ignorant politicians and the inland revenue can be. They can easily give movies tax breaks but they can't give games tax breaks firstly coz of all the controversy (Byron Report) and the like.
We need a young Prime Minister who loves playing GTA !
I don't see why it "smacks of desperation" to ask for a level playing field & if the UK where to give tax breaks, should every other country respond with similar measures? Should the games industry get worldwide protection? Would that be right?
Canada's incentives were given to encourage a fledgling industry. They've been very successful & Canada now has a healthy industry with many competitive advantages but the incentives should not be one of them. They've served their purpose, it's time for them to go.
Also, the French tax breaks are quite a different beast as the criteria for which games can benefit from them are very strict.
The article is not exactly correct. Tax breaks in Canada are only provided in a few provinces in Canada and only for provincial taxes, not federal. These are relatively minor. Vancouver, British Columbia has more people working in the games industry per population than any place in North America, but has no tax breaks whatsoever. There is more to a healthy industry than just tax breaks.
Wolgang,
I'm affraid you either live in the past or has never been to Montreal. There are only around 3,000-3,500 people working in game development in Vancouver. 2/3 of that workforce is only with EA in Burnaby (1,300 people) and Vancouver (another 400). There has been no growth there for the last few years.
In Montreal, it is now more than 5,000 people. Now, only 1/3 of Quebec's game workforce is with Ubisoft (the largest Canadian studio with 1,700 employees). In addition, you have now the largest Canadian indie (A2M: 450 employees), EA Montreal (450 and growing), Gameloft (300), Eidos Montreal (already 120) and many other studios with more than 100 employees.
Vancouver has been lagging behind Montreal since at least 2006. Sorry to rain on your parade.
What a bunch of d*cks.
Instead of offering us tax breaks - they choose to p*ss millions up the wall to spoil it for Canada who are doing the right thing.
Fantastic. Thanks DCMS - completely missing the point yet again. Whay not organise an inquest into who shot J.R. you ****ing pointless waste of expense and tax payers money.
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