God Save the Queen

Leveling the Playing Field

Perhaps most critical is the concern over cultural control. In providing a tax break scheme to French developers, games were (rightly) classified as cultural products in France to get around the European Union's rules against intervening with failing industries. However, that official cultural classification now comes with the burden that any French developer that wants to leverage the incentive has to pass a scorecard based on a test applied by the Ministry of Culture.

There was a similar situation in Texas in 2007, when the state government was going to extend the film incentives to cover games. Unfortunately, the legislature wanted to impose eligibility rules for games that limited the types of content they could contain if the developers wanted to receive tax assistance, a position the Entertainment Software Association fought to prevent at the expense of losing the incentives altogether. In the end, cooler minds prevailed and the incentive was implemented with dramatically reduced game-specific restrictions (i.e., games cannot disparage Texas or Texans).

When confronted with these challenges and limitations, it's a wonder that there's such a fight for tax breaks in the first place. I'm not suggesting they are bad per se, or that if the government comes to your door tomorrow with bags full of money, you should refuse it. Still, it provides more nuance to the issue and begs the question: What other kinds of programs would make a difference?

Turning back to our local U.K. experts, one of the most oft cited issues was the government's complete lack of respect for the industry. When you take into account the poor and usually negative coverage of games in the mainstream media, a strong pro-games PR campaign would go a long way to changing the overall vibe. Ironically enough, many point to this particular challenge as the greatest success of Games Up? to date. Despite the unlikelihood of getting the tax break, the topic serves as an entry point to engage with government on a tangible issue, gaining mindshare with politicians and the media.

Many others spoke of the need for better education programs and ongoing training for existing talent. Several talked about fostering the same entrepreneurialism that was at the origins of the U.K.'s bedroom coders scene. A few mentioned the need to better support local communities to accelerate the informal sharing of knowledge. Some suggested simplifying and extending the existing R&D tax credit scheme to be more accessible.

In the end, the best advice came from one U.K. studio head who simply said, "If we just stop being so complacent, and focus on continuing to make great games, we'll be fine."

Jason Della Rocca is the former executive director of the IGDA, and now advises international governments on how to grow their game industry ecosystems. He blogs at RealityPanic.com, no thanks to any Canadian tax breaks.