Kotaku

Activision's so incensed over the United Kingdom's rollback of promised tax breaks for video games development that the publisher is considering the withdrawal of its 600-employee office from the country, according to The Telegraph.

Though tax relief proposals had support from both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leadership in Parliament, the plans were scrapped in June when the chancellor of the exchequer implemented an emergency budget plan. Bobby Kotick, Activision's chief executive, called the decision "a terrible mistake.

"There are so many other places that are encouraging the video games industry," he said, according to The Telegraph.

Kotick noted that despite the development talent pool in the U.K., China and Singapore are joined by U.S. states like Texas and Rhode Island in offering incentives to the games industry. The British trade group TIGA notes that the country could see a brain drain in its development population if more isn't done to retain the business. TIGA figures tax breaks would translate to 3,550 high level jobs.

http://kotaku.com/5722916/activision-threatens-600-uk-jobs-over-loss-of-tax-breaks

They should move to Ontario!!!

Oh Activision, will you ever cease to be awful?

Everyone knows they make enough to keep those jobs.

Blame them for only caring about appeasing the stockholders.

What studios do Activision have in the UK?

FreeStyle Games I believe.

The DJ Hero guys I think.

Edit -

According to this though they only have ~44 employees. I wonder where the other ~550 come from.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/resources/directory/company/freestylegames

that activision tisk tisk

They also aquired Bizarre, but they are located in Liverpool, but that is the only other studio I can think of that they might axe.

There was a rumour of them being closed a while ago, I am going with Bizarre and FreeStyle.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-11-16-layoffs-possible-closure-rumoured-at-bizarre

I know it popular to hate on Activision but in this case I have to say if it doesn't make financial sense to keep the people in the UK there isn't any real reason for them to stay. As bad as it sounds and as sad as the job losses are it's not really an evil thing to do...

I would say in addition to the developers there are probably a lot of people involved in the publishing/advertising side that are the jobs that make up the majority of the office.

To be honest here Activision is correct in this choice.  There's lots of places around the world that are giving gaming companies good reasons to stick around and if the UK isn't willing to help out I'm sure there are plenty of other communities who would love the jobs.