Our Government once again demonstrates its complete and utter lack of understanding of games.

Oh dear... This falls a little short on helping developers to be world leaders.

Looks like this will work well actually. good job. Not sure what the idiot above is banging on about. Dicky would you like to elaborate?

So even if, for example, Angry Birds was entirely UK developed it wouldn't qualify because the birds and pigs aren't British enough.

This holds no surprises - it's essentially the same as the film test, and is ultimately derived from EU State Aid rules.

@ Richard Davey -- of course they don't understand games. They are posh boys, not PS-Box-2 playing louts from council estates. They understand rugger and honest, manly pursuits that built the Empire, not the kind of crouching in the dark in front of the telly kind of filthy perversities in which the lower orders waste their fetid lives.

Let's say that we make a video game 100% set in London... you're a terrorist - a British terrorist... and your target is the Royal Family... then let's say the game is 100% developed and written in the UK. That would qualify for tax breaks, right..?

Chris - there are 31 points up for grabs here and only 16 need to be met. So the game can feature what it likes if the team and cast are UK-based and it generally "enhances our culture" - though how you prove the latter, I'm not quite sure

This was the ONLY way tax relief was going to happen in Europe at the moment, and it's great to see it move along through the stages of red tape. It would be good to get a definition of 'qualified person' but if you are a small UK team you pretty much have 11 points already just from the personnel points. If your hero characters where British, and used British voice overs, that's another 8 points. Job done. Personally, I think it will be great fun and refreshing to see lots of games come out that use British themes, stories and characters. Maybe some gritty space adventure staring an unlikely hero with a strong Wigan accent ;)

@Chris Redman - I think angry birds 'would' qualify if it was created in the UK.

3A) 3 Points (undetermined location)
3B) 4 Points (undetermined location)
3C) 0 Points
3D) 0 Points
4) ? Up to 4 Probably 0
5A) 2 Points
5B) 1 Point
6A-H) 8 Points (1 Point for each)

That totals up to 18.
That is enough to qualify.

These rules seem good enough to me.

Hmm looks like this will at least encourage outsourcing of aspects of games to the UK. Example: get a British composer to record your soundtrack in the UK - hey presto: 2 points!

#uktaxexemptgames

I think we'll only be able to truly judge how effective this is when British companies start applying for it. See how many get accepted / rejected.

Looks pretty standard to me.

I'm a solo dev and do ALL my work in the UK. I fail to qualify by 2 points mainly because I make shooters without a story or characters.
So a game is only 'British' if it has a story? Who comes up with this rubbish?

So would a single developer doing all work themselves get full points for personnel involved? Doesnt really say if thats allowed.

For location, how "undetermined" is "undetermined"?

Fable is specified to be in a location (Albion) but it's not a real place and it's very much based on a historical Britain, which might leave some room for ambiguity.

I think a lot will be left to interpretation of "Undetermined".

4 easy point for the game being in English, so really just need a further 12 points.

Anyone have a clue what a "qualifying person" means, EU National I'm guessing?

Also am I right in saying this only really benefits developers?

I honestly don't see why people are complaining. The government is offering a developer a tax cut, they need to get something in return.

I think culturally British films are fantastic and help set the stage for our country, there is a reason why other country's have a soft spot for British culture when many of them have never visited.

As a developer in the UK having more incentive to focus on the UK and Europe could help stem the tide of the Americanization of games.

Just to add, I would be much more inclined to set a game in London over your typical New York, I would also rather be the 007 rather than Transformers.

So England finally made it to the stars and claimed most of it for itself. Other nations where kept planet bound apart from some welsh and scottish terrorist wanting their own part of space even though they couldnt afford to run it without english help. HAHA. Designed and developed by UK staff thats my space shooter sorted with maximum points. What bonus do we get for a highscore? This is about video games after all. Gawd bless the queen guvn'r.

Wow, there really are some stupid people posting idiotic comments. If you don't understand the rules Steve, why not look into it and see if it's the rules or you that is being a twat. Your shooter without a story or characters would qualify just, and all you ruddy idiot would have to do to qualify with more points would be to say the main character was British and you'd qualify easily. Maybe if you are that dense you should stop making games...

Good they're recognizing the other languages, not that anyone's made a Welsh language game... yet. Please tell me I'm wrong, but I think there's only Colin & Cumberland, and a fan translation of Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches. Neither really counts. Aside from Dragon Age 2 even the accent is ignored.

Way to reduce video games to nothing more than propaganda, England. This is utterly deplorable. How does this come off as anything less than bribery to anyone? Now game creators will be adding British characters to their games not because it makes sense. Not because it enhances the plot. Not because it enhances the game in any way—they just want the tax breaks. How does this sound fair to anyone?

I personally take pride in my work. How would you like if it the government stuck its nose into your business, dangled a carrot in front of you, and told you you could have it but you have to sell your soul first.

How are people not okay with biased advertising but are okay with this? How is this different from game reviewers being paid off to give a good review for a game even though he or she may not really think the game is good? This is literally the exact same thing.
“Up to 4 points may be awarded in respect of the contribution of the video game to the promotion […] of British culture.”
How could anyone not view this as payola?

Not only that but it makes the workplace much less fair and promotes bias. I once dreamed of working at Rareware when I was a child. Under these legislations I would never have a chance at rising to the top. Their UK folk would always get promoted ahead of myself just for the tax breaks.

Absolutely despicable. Mind you I have nothing against people or game companies from the UK, nor do I have anything against games that star UK people or take place in the UK. I do however have a problem with payola and having the government steer its game companies for its own shameless promotion.

L.Spiro, as long as you were living in the UK and paying taxes here, you would be classed as resident and would be a 'qualifying person'. It would not affect your chances of promotion.

Whether you could negotiate the old boys network that was the Rareware of yesteryear is another matter.

As for the rest of your comment, I agree with the principle but in practice, the definitions are so vague they will have next to no effect on the content of the games.
This is just a fudge to avoid running foul of EU legislation that prohibits state aid unless it's used for cultural reasons.

Someone else mentioned the EU policy elsewhere and that certainly shifts blame, but in a way exposes a flaw within the EU system. I am sure they feel that rule in general is justified but when it makes countries jump through these kinds of hoops in an effort to promote industry growth it is obviously time to implement certain exceptions etc.

It should also be mentioned in this article why they have to have all these strange regulations that make it seem at face value like payola. Knowing that it is a means of conforming to EU legislation certainly sheds new light on the subject, but then again perhaps that original ignorance-induced shock-and-awe is a desired response in journalism.

It is great to have these tax breaks in place at all and we should be very thankful for a movement in the right direction.
However, this system make a number of presumptions as to what the content of a game is and what British means.
The inclusion of "Characters" and "Dialogue" are heavily prescriptive of a certain type of game, meaning all other types of game will lose out..
I wonder where this puts any internationally based sports, driving or puzzle games (this includes every sports game ever made these days)
Also it means it could be encouraging a glut of
character based dialogue driven games (Not historically the most British of game types (if you think back over history).
I would like to see encouragement of some less easily quantifiable British elements such as:-
a. innovation in the sense of good old fashioned British invention (as opposed to me too gaming)
b. British style Humour and cultural reference
c. Spelling in UK English, instead of US English :)
d. More intellectual and educational aspects in general, (regardless of cultural basis).

You could set the game in anywhere in the EEA, without any UK relevant content at all, according to the rules above.
The Location, Characters and story can be anywhere in EEA not UK (the French revolution would count).You just need a minimal 'UK' based dev team.Then outsource all the other work and receive the tax break.
Will it really help UK devs? Possibly smaller start ups will launch hundreds of 'Bubble bobble Birmingham' and random British backgrounds will pop up in 'Tekkan Thames 'Oi, gv'nor edition'. Anyone worked out which classic British games wouldn't qualify even when the whole team was UK based. We could end up more culturally damaged by a flood of games with British references shoehorned in, so when deciding which game to pick the response will be ' Not another crap British game'. The one game we should have produced here should have been Assassins Creed 3, it's all about the British tax system, that would have qualified.

LOL 'British culture'. Long dead and gone, thanks to weak effeminate status striving busybodies & various Semites. Nuke Britain today!

The requirements mostly make sense - they're bureaucratic, but you have to somehow specify clear/objective criteria for such programmes.

Angry Birds isn't really spreading Finnish culture - most people wouldn't know or care where it come from.

But having, say, Grand Theft Auto V: London would result in a measurable impact, and I'd guess that a small increase in tourism business caused by that would return the gov't investment.

From the cultural test guidelines from the BFI (which I assume this one draw heavily):

For the purposes of this test a qualifying person means a citizen or a person ordinarily resident in:
i) the UK (including citizens of the Isle of Man or Channel Islands),
ii) any EEA state (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia,
Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway Poland, Portugal,
Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden)
To qualify for a point a person must be a national of one of these countries at the time the film was
being made. If a person holds dual nationality he/she may choose either nationality for the purpose of
the test.
Ordinary residence has the following characteristics: it is a regular habitual mode of life in a particular
place; it must be lawful; it must have been adopted voluntarily; it must be for a settled purpose; its
continuity has persisted despite temporary absences; and it may be of long or short duration.

This has been implemented so that our developers are making games which enrich our culture and do not contribute to our cultural Americanisation.

I've nothing against American culture, and actually find it quite interesting, but when that culture overrides our own, the Americans lose their uniqueness, we lose our uniqueness and the world loses one more culture ripe for experiencing.
The tax breaks are going to games which either advertise Britain as a place for tourism or take British culture and teach the world our perspective, so that the world may better understand us. Another reason of course is to try and build on what we already have.

I've been playing games since 3 years old and own over 200 on steam, so I'm not saying this as someone out of touch with the industry, but as someone who's a fan of individual cultures and would like to see more variety in games.

I don't see how games can't use as much innovation as they like but be set in Britain/EU.

I love games set in the USA, but I would like a bit of variety , which measures like this will hopefully create.

Well I don't mind one bit if the games get ait more British added to them. Tax relief helps keep the game funded so they can do more with the money we give them.