kowenicki said:
jammy2211 said:
I believe the video game industry here in the UK has (one of) the highest contribution to the economy to total employees ratio. It's been one of the industries that continued to grow / show success over the years and suchlike, and the government is risking losing it with this.
As said, there is without a doubt a huge risk Bizarre, Rockstar, Sony Studios and all will simply move to Eastern Europe or Asia in the next 5 or so years, as it's just cheaper. Much much cheaper. Then our politicians will be scratching their heads when yet another contributor to our economy isn't contributing at all.
Whether Tax-Reliefs is the best method / incentive the UK needs to do something to remain competitive in attracting what has been a successful industry to our country, and currently we're quite simply a far less attractive proposal. I can see this yet again being another UK industry lost to the global market in a decade or so.
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well if that happens in the UK then it will happen in France, Germany and probably Japan too...
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I believe France has a Tax-Relief equivalent type incentive system in place? Although I believe Ubisoft is expanding to Canada so no doubt it's still better over there.
But indeed it's very possible, and it'll be a shame what with our history of losing industry. I personally can't see a reason why we should expect it to stick around when it's simply cheaper elsewhere, and those coming through the education system to become games developers are typically young, with few ties to the UK and I'd imagine happy to take the employment in Canada, or Florida, or wherever else.
To me it feels like the same lack of foresight that lost us a promising position in the Space industry in the 70s. Or the computing Industry... sigh.
