The game industry has today been highlighted by the British Government as a possible beneficiary offilm-style tax credits. As part of its “Creative Britain” initiative, Labour is looking into the benefits of encouraging creative industries and raising awareness of the R&D tax credit scheme already in place for game developers.
Secretary of state for culture media and sport, Andy Burnham, announced the initiative, and the study is also set to look into aiding the development of next generation broadband.
“We are very pleased that Andy Burnham linked the idea of film credits to support for the video games development community,” stated ELSPA’s Paul Jackson. “Whilst we are very different in terms of content we face many of the same issues.”
The British government confuses me sometimes. On the one hand, we hear about it “cracking down” on the games industry and possibly stifling it with tighter leglislation, while on the other it talks about encouragement and growth. Sounds like a case of government wanting to reap the economic success of the games industry while still appealing to those that fear it. Anything that helps the UK games industry, however, is fine by me, so credit away says I.
