UK Game Tax Breaks Finally Approved!
polycounter lvl 9
Fingers crossed this should help studios hire talented graduates who are struggling to find a job in games, drive the future of the UK's gaming industry and reduce the number of layoffs!
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/456042/games-tax-breaks-approved-after-arduous-wait/?utm_content=buffer8b0a5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/456042/games-tax-breaks-approved-after-arduous-wait/?utm_content=buffer8b0a5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Replies
I wish I could be overwhelmingly positive about this news, but the UKs controlling censorship loving bureaucracy will make it as unattractive as the tax breaks make it alluring.
No one wants the goverment sticking their dick into your gameplays content.
The game must majority be developed in the UK / EEA, but that's kind of the point. I'm disappointed by the fact it's basically got to be set in Europe; kind of limiting for fantasy / scifi games!
At first I was like yaaaaay! then I heard this stuff about the game needing to be uk in cultural content? thats a really limiting factor. haha maybe we will have devs trying to cash in making games like scifi rts based on a steampunk british empire? or a fantasy hack n slash mmo based on celtic lore?
Anyway, you guys might want to read about it a little more be before being disappointed about things that aren't true.
From RPS:
As a British citizen who this could benefit I still think any test at all is bullshit, there should be a tax break for all or a tax break for none, a monetary incentive could be used for cultural censorship, favoritism, all sorts of negative aspects could emerge across the industry.
I am not that confident in the localized citizenship job boost policy, it will further lead to off the book outsourcing I am sure and I personally don't like borders when it comes to this industry, a professional athlete can traverse freely, even people playing these games registered as "athletes" can have greater freedom of travel than the people making them.
if I am putting together a studio and the best character artist is in canada, the best texture artist I can find is in the US the best writer is in the UK and I want this dream team all in one location its a absolute nightmare.
I'm still struggling to see what you're angry about. I think I got lost when you started talking about athletes. But ok!
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It is a global society, Perhaps I have picked up some colloquialisms as a result of that,But what do you want from me? must I burst out with cockney rhyming slang to earn your esteemed approval?
I was merely stating I am a British citizen to give context, so it would not seem like I am emerging with my firmly held views from some sort of envy.
Quite simply, it's easier to get a athlete visa approval than a game developer, and given Pro gamers can fall under the Athlete category you can quite literally have a situation where someone who plays a game can work in a country, but not the person who made the game.
What I am "angry" about is a anti-freedom, bureaucratic orwellian nightmare of a country having a say in what goes into a game, and it is so obviously open to abuse, all UK employees will give you a bigger tax break, that's as much of an incentive to operate out of the UK and outsource as much as possible as it is to create stable jobs in well put together studios.
If you can't see what the problem is with all this fine print attached to the eye popping headline "*tax breaks for the UK game industry" you must be extremely short sighted.
I was joking about your Americanised spellings. Sorry, I should have realised that was a mistake.
Also, please don't bring my glasses into this.
The best thing about this thread..
haha yeah I was just kidding but they dont sound like the worst ideas for games! Its just annoying because a studio needs to be flexible with its ideas not tied down to some arbitrary guidelines. Extreme example: at a mobile games studio we release a lot of small games per year, imagine we work 2 months on one uk style game and get tax breaks and then the month after release we design a non uk style game and have to cut down costs and maybe even fire people cause we loose our tax breaks and cant afford them? seems silly.
Excessive0000 pointed out that I was being short sighted by just believing the headlines of 'UK TAX BREAKS!!!1101!" (even though all I did was post factual information about the cultural test), but I feel a lot of people are just looking at the cultural test headlines and then just assuming it's the be all and end all to the tax break.
Yeah but its still a problem when a developer has to carefully question its ideas for the next game - just in case - it isnt as lucky as super hexagon. We will have to wait and see, Id be surprised if they are bothered to police all the ideas of every company.
Scotland, Ireland (England and Wales) are British... but yeah this conjures up the idea of games of tea drinking and crumpet sniffing. Perhaps a spell of doffing yer cap and tugging yer forelock to the aristocracy. Be all proper like.
Lame.
A list of movies getting tax breaks due to being filmed over here or vfx;
New Star Wars
Avengers age of ultron
Maleficent
New Alice in wonderland
Jack Ryan
Monuments men
Snow White and the huntsman
Gravity
Last year the film tax relief saved film makers £202 million. It sounds great but our government never does anything out of the goodness of their own hearts. Hopefully more business and less taxes equates to more money for them than less business but higher tax rates. They are hopefully doing the same for our television industry aswell, donned at the moment the 'downtown abbey relief'
So hopefully if a game is uk made and the majority of the team is British then you got a good chance already.
Let's say you do that.
You get four points from using the English language, three from making it here, and up to eight from having European leads, so you'd get six.
You've got thirteen of the required sixteen points to qualify.
Of your remaining choices there's...
A European or fictional setting, four and three points respectively.
The majority of your lead characters are European or from a fictional setting gets you four points. If only one of the lead characters is, you get two points if they're the main character, one point if they're the third main character.
The story relating to a European country is worth four points.
Your last choice, and this is probably where lawyers get to interpret the rules, you get up to four points for "the contribution of the video game to the promotion, development and enhancement of British culture."
It's not going to be hard to qualify.
yeah that sounds pretty easy actually.
No.
Ireland is not British. Britain is a group of islands and the major island is Great Britain, consisting of Wales, England and Scotland. Ireland is it's own island.
The United Kingdom is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the top 1/6th of the island of Ireland). The Republic of Ireland is it's own sovereign nation, with a different government, different currency and everything.
People are still shooting and bombing eachother over this distinction, so it pays to get it right.
Then I call you wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
It's sovereignty isn't disputed, either; the dispute is over the political status of Northern Ireland as there is a divide over whether Northern Ireland should become a part of Ireland or remain a part of the UK.
But the B-17 is pretty much the most iconic American bomber from WW2!
Maybe a game based around the Lancaster?
that would be quite scary!
Lancasters and Spitfires then, yeah ;-)