British Columbia struggling to compete as developers flock to neighbouring provinces
Vancouver needs tax break incentives similar to its neighbours in Quebec and Ontario if it’s to halt the developer exodus and compete on a level playing field, the founder of Slant Six has said.
Speaking to The Vancouver Sun, Brian Thalken said he was sad to see developers leaving the province and uprooting their families to find development roles in regions with more jobs on offer.
He added that it was also disheartening to be outbid on a number of projects by studios based in Montreal and Ontario who could potentially hire more people for projectst and develop them for less money.
A number of developers such as Rockstar and Radical Entertainment have been closed down in the last few years, or had their operations significantly downsized as studios move to regions with better tax incentives.
Slant Six Studios, which has developed titles such as Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, has also been forced to reduce its staff size from 150 developers to 75.
Advertisement
“I don’t want to wade too deep into politics here but it is disheartening,” he said.
“When we go to talk to a big publisher, we are competing against independent studios in Montreal and Ontario. When we quote a game, they are able to lower their effective man-month rate and land more projects than we get here.
“We get outbid and the work goes to the eastern provinces, therefore the jobs go to the eastern provinces. We are losing our people, we are losing our tax base - these are highly educated, talented people and jobs that are going away.”
Thalken went on to say that his studio was currently trying to rally the game industry in British Columbia to lobby the federal and provincial government to implement stronger tax incentives for developers to keep the region’s sector alive.
“We’re not looking for handouts, we’re just looking for a level playing field,” said Slant Six game director Tuomas Pirinen.
To help keep the local industry alive, Thalken also said that many developers were shifting to mobile platforms and away from console as they look to become more profitable and develop titles with less risk attached.
The studio, which has traditionally developed console games, recently released mobile title The Bowling Dead, which has been downloaded more than 110,000 times.
Develop will be publishing an in-depth look on the state of the industry in Canada in our special region focus in the March issue of Develop Magazine, which will also be available at the Game Developers Conference.
If you are interested in taking part, please e-mail Develop editor Will Freeman at Will.Freeman@intentmedia.co.uk.
Using that logic we should lower the min wage here in BC to 2 bucks an hour because developer jobs are being outsourced to China.
Tax breaks are a handout. They're corporate welfare and need to stop entirely...everywhere. The only things that should possibly receive any sort of tax break is for absolute essentials, e.g. renewable energy, small farmers, etc. Luxury items like video games, big oil, etc? No, absolutely not.
Sorry but the whining about tax breaks contributes nothing to the conversation. Worldwide competitiveness in a multitude of products (whether luxuries like videogames or necessities like oil) in the industrialized world is driven strongly by government subsidies, tax breaks, and other incentives for good reason: Price is one of the most integral and defining aspects of competitiveness in the marketplace, losing competitive incentives (like the tax credits discussed above) drastically restricts the competitiveness of businesses in a region, ultimately resulting in closing of localized business, relocation of employable staff to more competitive regions for those that are financially able, and an under-employment of the remaining labor force in that region due to the fallout. This results in SIGNIFICANTLY greater losses in taxable revenue for the country/province than they would have been returning to businesses, not to mention contributing to further brain-drain from their territory. It would be lovely to live in an idyllic world where these incentives weren't needed, but the global competition that exists in the marketplace makes these tax-based tools a necessary reality.
The gov boys here don't get it. I don't think they are capable of understanding how they have stifled such a lucrative business field and sent some of the most highly paid and technically educated individuals out of our province to find jobs elsewhere. Translating into millions of dollars of tax money not coming from highly paid professional workers who are now in other provinces. But then this whole situation stinks of an old politician with no understanding of the current most profitable markets or with a personal vendetta/ego that is more important than one of BC's (well not anymore) most profitable business sectors.
That is what happens when you give the old boys the keys to the city. They get all huffy or get confused about the reality of modern day business.
As the one of the persons interviewed here, let me clarify... I would love that Ontario, Quebec, UK and the others would not offer these incentives. But they do. And either BC gives up altogether on games, or all that investment and highly-paid jobs go elsewhere. We, the workers on the industry will relocate, and take our families with us. These jobs will exist, the question is just where. And those provinces and countries will reap the benefits. Especially silly as right now BC trains huge amount of games industry people in their schools and universities, who will be forced to move elsewhere. All the tax investment will then be wasted.
Gaming industry wants more tax breaks (remember they already get some) - Just read that the movie industry wants more (they get break already too)
Heck these companies won't be happy until we are paying them to be here for the jobs.
If you can't make money because of Canada's basic taxes then your business isn't worth investing in. Give a bigger tax break and in 5 years they will want another one or will mention leaving again.
Lets be real here - it's not like BC's taxes are way out of proportion with the rest of the country or even the G8.
Good luck getting any sort of investment from the Government after that fiasco in the US where the taxpayer had to eat the losses.
Sadly, there are other factors here too that make it an 'uneven' playing field, the cost of living in Vancouver is extremely high (the most unaffordable city in North America I believe), this means that salaries are considerably higher than similar roles in the Eastern provinces.
It's no longer the hotbed of game development it was back in early 2001-2005, and naturally, people are moving to where the work and exciting projects are.
