UK Government fails the games industry again.

Posted on December 9th, 2009

Today saw the announcement in Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report that a controversial £6 broadband tax would go ahead for all fixed landlines in the UK.

There was however a glaring omission of tax breaks for the UK games industry as proposed and recommended in the government’s own digital Britain report of July this year.

Failing to include this is, for me, a disappointment, a mistake and ultimately short sighted.

During the formative years of the global game industry, figures such as Rare and the Darling brothers of Codemasters led the world in innovative game design and production values. In the years since then, the focus (and money) has shifted to America and unsurprisingly Japan. All this while at the same time more and more courses are being offered by Universities in the UK for game design and development than ever before.

I get sent CV’s of aspiring candidates every few days looking for work, many of them recent graduates. Unfortunately, having just come out of a recession we’re not in a position to be able to take a risk and expand our workforce too quickly, even though many of the applicants are very talented and would be a huge boost to out production capabilities and output.

During the past few months, we at MBXGames have been compiling and keeping lists of freelancers and potential hires with a view to expanding in the coming 12 months. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that financially it does not make sense to hire most of the staff internally. We would be far better off employing a small core of creative staff in the UK and outsourcing most of the development to overseas contractors in Thailand, China and Russia.

When I say there is a financial difference I don’t mean savings of 5 or 10%, but development costs at the moment would be nearer 50% when outsourced.

I understand the Government isn’t in a position to help every sector and I realise that we as an industry must look to invest in upcoming talent but this currently feels like a very one sided relationship. If the chancellor could meet the games industry halfway, it could lead to British studios once again leading the field and retaining the talent we are currently hemorrhaging so painfully abroad and to other disciplines.

The fact the Alistair Darling doesn’t see fit to offer a break to an industry that does more currently for the UK economy than the film industry is a sad state of affairs and I fear a reflection on the still prevailing view that video games are not “real, grown up entertainment”.