UK, AU studios say g'day to tax breaks

The issue of brain drain to Canada has been on the lips of the UK development community for some time now. Paul Jackson, director general of the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, has been the latest in a long line of UK industry heavyweights to speak out.

"The Canadians have driven a tank over the French Citroen and have now parked on our lawn," he said in March. "It is becoming very challenging to keep core development studios here."

It would seem that the UK industry is taking steps to address this ongoing issue by looking overseas for help. The Independent Games Association today announced a partnership with its equivalent body down under, the Game Developers' Association of Australia. GDAA chief executive Greg Bondar and TIGA chief executive Dr Richard Wilson announced yesterday that their organisations were to share resources in a bid to achieve tax cuts from both governments and support both country's local games-development industries.

In a joint statement, the two industry bodies announced that they will "share future research findings that highlight the benefits that tax breaks for games production would provide for both the games development sectors of Australia and of the UK and to their respective economies."

By doing this, both groups hope to help their members "compete successfully against game developers across the globe when market conditions are fair," said Bondar and Wilson. They also stressed that, "The scales are increasingly tipped against [us] when the governments of other countries, especially Canada, heavily subsidise their game developers."

The deal follows on the back of yesterday's announcement by ELSPA, which revealed that the UK saw a record £418.8 million ($828.9 million) of leisure-software sales in the first quarter of 2008.

Jackson preempted the comments of TIGA and GDAA in a statement heralding these results. "As it stands, the UK is already down to fourth place from third as the world's creative centre for games. It is time the Government recognised the massive financial contribution we make to the UK economy, especially when compared to the film, TV, and music industries," he said.

The UK games industry employs approximately 25,000 people and contributes £2 billion ($3.96 billion) per year to the country's economy.