Cultural subsidy would help UK games industry, says CEO Richard Wilson
UK games development trade association Tiga has today welcomed the DCMS' call for more evidence to support the introduction of a tax break for games developers.
Today, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published a letter to Tiga CEO Richard Wilson and ELSPA director general Michael Rawlinson telling the two to work closely and quickly on supplying materials.
The proposal will then be passed on to the Treasury.
Richard Wilson, Tiga CEO stated: “We are delighted that the Government is moving quickly on this issue. A tax break on cultural grounds will produce real benefits for the UK video games industry. It will provide additional resources for qualifying game developers and potentially lead to the development of new and original games.”
“If the UK development community were granted a tax break on cultural grounds (similar to the French system), this would financially benefit developers and help them to compete more effectively and on a level playing field with our international competitors.”
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On the ‘culturally British’ element of the proposed tax break, Wilson added:“Qualification under the French system is quite generous and depends on a number of factors. For example you receive points for working with European partners and for the game being published in at least three current European languages. We will of course work closely with the Government on the detail of a potential tax break to ensure it is successful.”
You can find the information about the French system here: http://www.cnc.fr/Site/Template/T3.aspx?SELECTID=3005&ID=2055&t=2" onclick="window.open ( this.href ); return false;" class="comment_url" >http://www.cnc.fr/...5&t=2
You do receive 1 (one) point (without an s), if your game has 3 european languages (including French).
"Only" 37% of the projects were eligible for the rebate. (45 games benefited from it with an estimated cost of 170M€).
45% of the games are for the Nintendo DS (average cost of 281k€), 20% for the Wii (average cost of 2,7M€).
The majority of tax rebate is for "cheaper" production, and interestingly, the majority of their budget can claim the tax rebate contrary to PS3/xbox360 production (average cost of 11M).
