Gaming is "one notch up from porn" in the UK

October 24, 2008 by admin · Comment
Filed under: PSP News

Despite the continuing growth in the gaming industry, it looks like the UK has gone conservative in terms of handing tax breaks to gaming. It’s a lucrative industry, but gaming in the UK is dying because other countries have seduced games companies with tax breaks. Richard Wilson, chief executive of Tiga explains why.

The government understands that UK games developers are not competing on a level playing field but is reluctant to introduce tax breaks for games production unless it can be shown that there is an issue of market failure or that there are strong cultural reasons for supporting UK games developers.

Ian Livingstone, creative director and head of acquisitions at Eidos explains, “We’ve recently slipped from third to fourth in world development behind Canada. We’re now the most expensive country in the world in which to develop.”

In the past six years, half of the independent UK development studios have already closed or been bought by foreign publishers who see more value in our studios and intellectual property than we do ourselves.

Developers in the UK have banded together to form the “Games Up?” campaign, which seeks to lobby the government for tax breaks and institutional change in universities to accommodate gaming. Sadly, the parliament has been unreceptive.

Don Foster, Liberal Democrat spokesman on culture and media, explains that the gaming industry suffers because it competes with other industries, like fashion and tourism, for tax breaks. Gaming also has an “unjustifiably poor image.” “Few people in this country realize how important it is to the UK economy.”

Livingstone agrees: “We’re still seen as the red-headed stepchild of the creative industries, one notch up from pornography in the eyes of most of the establishment. They forget that half of the world and half of the UK’s population play games. Games help define who we are as human beings — they are as important, culturally and socially, as music and films.”

Two words: Lara Croft. Let’s not forget that the most successful heroine in the history of gaming came from Eidos, a developer in the UK. The country’s success when it comes to gaming just can’t be questioned, and shame on the parliament for not taking it for what it is. The industry is in an entirely different one from that of porn, so why treat them like they’re the same?

Livingstone explains: “The perception is ‘why do we need it, as clearly we’re doing well?’ But do you put a new roof on your house when it’s raining? Surely you should do it when it’s sunny?”