Bizarre creations calls for UK tax credits

March 19th, 2008, 20:19 Posted By: Shrygue

via Computer and Video Games


Developer Bizarre Creations has joined the growing chorus of calls for the UK government to introduce industry tax credits to ease the pressure on domestic talent.

"The UK has always been, and still is, a real hotbed of talent, producing some of the world's best selling games across many genres and formats. But it's getting harder and harder to be a developer or publisher in the UK, as increasing costs and global competition mean that everyone's under great financial pressure," the developer said in a statement on its website.

Explaining that the "stressful" economic conditions in the UK played a major role in its decision to become part of Activision, Bizarre said it supported the efforts of UK bodies TIGA and ELPSA in attempting to secure tax credits through discourse with the government, and threw its support behind UK citizens petitioning the government for the introduction of industry incentives.

"As the years have gone by, many studios have struggled and had to close, and different gaming studios have had to find their own ways to deal with this pressure. It was a big part of the reason that Bizarre chose to become part of the Activision family - in order to guarantee security to our employees, and security to our future games in this difficult climate. But even as part of a large publisher, without active government support of our industry, developing or publishing games in the UK is still stressful with current economic conditions.

"The problem has been compounded recently by some foreign government tax breaks and financial incentives given to studios and/or publishers who set up or operate in their countries. Many publishers have already taken advantage of financial incentives and moved, bought or set up development studios overseas, and UK talent (both experienced, and new graduates) is being tempted away. Of course, the games industry is a truly global marketplace, but undercutting incentives like this are extremely damaging to the UK games industry as a whole.

"That's why we fully support the recent actions from TIGA, ELPSA, and others in asking the UK government to offer the same tax credits to British developers, and continue to keep our local industry competitive with those overseas. We also fully support a recent petition to Gordon Brown asking directly for these tax credits to be introduced here."

The petition referred to currently has 1,744 signatures, and can be found here.

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