News UK developers need government support

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/05/29/uk_developers_need_government_support/1

Should the UK government offer more support to games developers? Free Radical thinks so.

 

In a capitalist economy, why should the government "support" a company that cant keep up - when the company is there purely to make a profit and not providing some sort of public service ?

 

is art a public service or not though?

 

Don't you start on the whole computer games are art debate!

Anyway, games companies should receive some form of Tax relief because they benefit our economy massively. But also games developers should stop being stupid and spending their money on rubbish

 

Lets see, if I am reading this right, because general costs of development are higher, profits are lower and they can't afford to pay the talented developers as much as developers overseas, so they move away.

I think the government should probably take a good look at it and what they do for films and think hard about wether they should be helping.

I know the french government in the past has been very supportive/protective of ubisoft for example, so why not here?

 

Well the government support artists, musicians, film makers etc., both with tax breaks and things like "musicians allowance", where out of work musicians get paid by the local council just for being a musician, I know someone who makes a nice little earning through that.

In many respects one could equate film making to computer game making, they're pretty similer, so if the government supports film makers, they should also support computer game developers. Whether they should support film and game developers is another debate, but if they support one, they ought to support the other.

 

It has been somewhat sad to see a lot of originally-British games become Americanised. Tomb Raider seems to have gone that way, as has Colin McRae and the TOCA series. Considering we're one of the largest markets whether or not this is an influence of what this article is concerned with I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me.

We're one of the largest markets for gaming etc in the world, it only makes sense that we have a greater presence in feeding that market than we do now.

 

Agreed, government subsidization isn't good for companies: it encourages dependence upon government, "nanny state" etc. which is a bad thing.

Though the only British game dev. that I can think of other than Introversion is Splash Damage. But they are a pretty good representation of British GD.


H.B.

 

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The games industry should get tax breaks like the movie industry does otherwise it will face the same decline. IMO all gamers should support this in the hope it allows developers to risk development time on innovative projects instead of countless sequels.

 

Youre telling me the movie industry is not in decline ? Right now, I just avoid british movies altogether as they are not likely to be worth the money paid for it ... Just wait till it comes out on DVD and it hurts a lot less.

As for something mentioned previously - Videogames are not art, and no I am not interested in subsidising it out of my tax money. Its a much more global economy and people will go where it is cheapest. If Britain is one of the world's most expensive countries to operate in, then thats what the government should be looking at. Not throwing my money into game developers pockets - which would be very well ligned if they actually made something good.

 

IMO games should count as some sort of interactive art...... if movies are art why not games?