UK Developer Petition

Petition to Provide tax or other
incentives to support the UK computer and video games industry is an
e-petition on the website of the British Prime Minister that says simply "We the
undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Provide tax or other incentives to
support the UK computer and video games industry." There's a write-up on this on
the
Bizarre Creations Website, and here's the detail from the petition:
We are looking on in horror as flagship UK company Eidos who created the
iconic Lara Croft, is facing problems of competing in a global environment.

The UK games industry requires tax incentives or some other assistance to
maintain a competitive market for global publishers. According to Tiga, the
trade association for UK developers, the number of independent studios has
shrunk from about 400 in 2001 to 150 today. Much of this is because publishers
such as Ubisoft of France, Sony of Japan and EA of the US have purchased the
high performing studios.

It is evident that studios based elsewhere are making efforts to extract what
grassroots talent the UK has. The FT wrote in 2007 Montreal is offering to pay
about 40 per cent of the salaries of the SCi developers and to give them a tax
holiday. Such grants have enticed global publishers, such as EA and Ubisoft, to
set up in the city.

We need the same to support UK talent in this industry that is expected to grow
phenomenally in the next 3 years, but with rising costs in development more
staff are required and it is increasingly less attractive to fund these larger
projects here, and almost impossible for independent studios to start
production.


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