Remember many people complain about tax breaks for games in general because games are a luxury item (not something needed for survival), and even moreso because it was used by foreign large companies which could hamper small local companies and local start-ups, so most likely they needed some sort of justification to give away tax breaks.

Personally I prefer tax breaks based on size (companies without many resources get them, but companies with quite a good amount of resources can't get them), but that's a different topic.

I wonder if someone made a game retelling the Braveheart story would they still get tax credit. The whole story uplifts the Scottish part of the UK and slanders the Brittish side.

I would still buy a game if it was focused in UK. But I wouldn't like it to be forced. For example if Rome Total war 2 takes place in the UK (Which it does but only 2 territories out of over 100 in the original.) just so they could take advantage of the break. I am now curious about how much video game companies are influenced by the governments of their respective countries. Mainly Korea because there is something about Korean MMO's that I find suspicious they are just too addictive.

Mainly Korea because there is something about Korean MMO's that I find suspicious they are just too addictive.

I would think that Korean MMOs have to be addictive in order to pull potential players away from StarCraft...

Lots of government funding works this way -- money is coming out of the government's "arts" and "culture" budget to go into some industry that produces "arts/culture". They want to get a ROI as usual, and they only way they can think to do so is to push their ideas of what culture should be.

I agree with the original comment. I see the policy as par for the course for the UK government. Politicians in general do not do anything unless they perceive a benefit for themselves. Maybe they think of the prestige, maybe they want to appease nationalists, or maybe they just like the idea of having more control over game production.


Concerning EU state aid rules, as far as I know national governments have full powers to set their own taxes. A tax cut is not a subsidy. It's not free money, just a reduction in the amount of money stolen from each company. I don't think a sector-wide tax cut would be a problem with the EU.

But if it can't be done without the EU complaining, the UK can still introduce an economy-wide tax cut, or say bye-bye to the EU. The EU rightly gets blamed for a lot of things but national governments are the main culprits for their own poor policies.


The new plan may even be going against the EU spirit of not discriminating against companies on the basis of what EU state they come from. Some of the criteria of the test (points 4 and 5 for example) concern the UK exclusively.

Anyway, all of this probably doesn't matter as the cut is likely to be something like 0.1%...

What the government want people to pay and what people pay are two different things, theres a lot of really nice loopholes that make it very easy paying very little tax

I am sure getting hold of a decent accountant / financial expert will point you in the right direction if taxes in the UK concern you

This isnt tax evasion either, a lot of these loopholes are available to everyone yet corporations seem to only get criticized when they take advantage :/

Dont read too much into taxes, its not as simple as "you pay X because of Y, or Z will happen"

Besides what exactly do parliament consider to be a video game, what do they consider to be British culture etc

I wouldnt worry about that article at all (or any article for that matter) the other week George Osbourne made a delightful hour+ thorough speech then spent hours answering questions, yet articles on the speech were short, simple and focusing on single quotes. Whatever this tax relief / proposal is you will likely have to keep track of it yourself via parliament itself and I can assure you it wont be a few paragraphs, avoid the media imo, they miss out important things all the time and twist words. Sometimes I think journalism requires a masters degree in Trolling

I'd imagine the rules are something along the lines that EU governments aren't allowed to subsidise industries without some kind of motivation, to not create an unfair market for the free movement of goods and services within the EU.
And about the only motivation that cuts it is that they are promoting something locally made and unique.
This kind of cuts are usually given to producers of some kind of local cheese or such thing.

So they have to invent a couple of rules to show that "We're not just promoting any game, we're promoting these special British games!"

Personally I am not a fan of the way it focusses on influencing the content of the game rather than the development of the game. That seems like the most stifling problem, not that it is necessarily unfair to people of other nationalities; that's the whole point of tax incentives after all.

Personally I am not a fan of the way it focusses on influencing the content of the game rather than the development of the game.

While you can score points that way as I pointed out above you can get 99% of the way there just by developing the game in the UK as games are currently developed.

For example if Angry Birds had been developed by a UK based company they could have qualified for this and that game is about as British as Mom's Apple Pie!

Pretty much ALL the comments here which have been negative have focus on the "British Culture" bit which is a pretty minor part of the scoring when all is said and done.

Besides would a bit more British influance in games REALLY be a bad thing? I mean, it would make a change from the "America are the greatest!!!!!" theme which runs though so so many games....
(Part of the reason I like the Modern Warfare series was because the basic game was 'US forces fuck up - British guy(s) save the day!' which was amusing)

Pretty much ALL the comments here which have been negative have focus on the "British Culture" bit which is a pretty minor part of the scoring when all is said and done.

Besides would a bit more British influance in games REALLY be a bad thing? I mean, it would make a change from the "America are the greatest!!!!!" theme which runs though so so many games....
(Part of the reason I like the Modern Warfare series was because the basic game was 'US forces fuck up - British guy(s) save the day!' which was amusing)

I don't think it's bad, I just don't like artificially influencing art in any direction other than the artists' intentions. It cheapens the meaning imo.