Lecturer in Programming for the Computer Games and Entertainment Industries
£40,474 to £46,475 pa incl (pro rata)
UK - South East
Final pre-budget report before the election makes no reference to the struggling UK game development sector
The UK government has again rejected calls for tax breaks in the game development sector.
Making what was clearly a coarse pre-budget speech for tough times, Chancellor Alistair Darling declared that his budget is one that would "secure the [economy's] recovery and promote long-term growth."
But Darling's pre-budget speech - his last before a general election - said that calls for game tax breaks were unconvincing.
The refusal of any tax subsidies comes in the wake of nearly two successive years of heavy campaigning from the UK game industry, spearheaded by games industry association Tiga.
The British sector is currently facing mass staff emigration to more developer-friendly nations such as Canada, which itself offers tax subsidies as big a 40 per cent of development costs.
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The news may not come as a surprise to some observers. Late in October the Shadow culture secretary Ed Vaizey sidestepped a definitive commitment to game development tax breaks, thus easing pressure on the Labour cabinet to take action.
Speaking at the London Games Conference, Shadow Culture Minister Ed Vaizey told a packed room that the Tory party will “shape the future” of the game industry if elected next Spring, while at the same time slamming Brown’s Government of inaction on the matter.
And yet – with numerous game industry luminaries listening in on Vaizey’s podium speech – the Shadow Culture Minister deftly slipped any concrete vow to introduce the kind of tax breaks that the industry has demanded for over two years.
“I know most of you have been focused on an industry-specific tax break,” he said, “but I encourage the sector to think more widely than that.”
Days later, Labour Lord Puttnam – a longstanding advocate of the game industry - said that tax break reform is not the priority for the UK industry.
[TIMELINE: UK TAX BREAKS]
Everybody ...
"ooooooooh caaaann-a-daaaaaa!!!"
But I should have taken that job offer in Paris.
Won't be so foolish next time.
No surprise really. We'd rather give £10bn in overseas aid than help a hi-tech, highly educated industry on our home shores. Maybe the British games industry should start talking to the various Canadian investment boards about relocating their entire operations to Canada. Imagine how scared the government would be if Codemasters, Blitz, EA, Disney, Sumo, Realtime Worlds etc were ALL revealed to be in talks about a mass move. And if the funding doesn't come then, go through with it.
Pretty soon the UK will be a nation of nothing but chavs anyway.
Surely this was the worst time for any government to think about tax breaks, right?
Labor will only be thinking about cuts and raising taxes. It has no choice.
Mike, that's the point. Tax breaks wouldn't cost the government anything - the money spent would be more than recouped in tax revenue from new jobs, safeguarded jobs, and new projects moving here. If it was the industry asking for money and giving nothing in return then I'd understand the government's position, but it's not.
Yeah but I'm pretty damn certai Labor don't want the label as "having offered tax cuts".
The whole lot of them think in headlines, not context, and they need to because the national press has become so obsessed with generating scandal.
We're all losing from this. That's the tragedy.
Fair point, well made.
In five years time there won't be a games industry here to save.
I've give him so many chances.
And I won't be voting conservative either, then.
When there is money to be spent funding the persistant and morally debatable war, there was never a chance of this happening. This government policy is not, and never will be, to help the industries of this country, when the option is to support third world relocation of so many sectors.
Here's the soundtrack to this whole sorry, predictable affair.
"Take, take, t-t-t-t-take" - Thanks "Government".
