Games industry battles the Eurocrats
BRITISH games designers have dreamt up cyberspace superstars like Lara Croft – but even the Tomb Raider heroine would have a fight on her hands against EU bureacracy.
After waging a long-running campaign, the games industry association TIGA succeeded in persuading Chancellor George Osborne to propose Games Tax Relief for developers in his March 2012 budget.
But the plans were zapped by the EU, which launched an investigation – even though French firms enjoy similar support – and is still to make a ruling.
TIGA says the tax issue is one reason the industry in Britain has slipped from third place in the world in 2007, behind the US and Japan, to fifth, overtaken by Canada and South Korea, both of which get generous government help.
Over the last three or four years the workforce has fallen by about 8 per cent as work has drifted overseas, while Canada’s has grown by 33 per cent.
TIGA chief Richard Wilson said: “The industry as a whole is not as strong as it once was because there is not a level playing field.”