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[oodavid]

As of yesterday, any UK Games company passing the "cultural test" can get a nice tax break. The criteria boil down to:

Are you based in the UK?
Are your employees in the UK?
Are you hiring UK subcontractors?
(wtf?) Are your game characters from the UK?
(my favourite) Is your story based in Britain / EEA?

http://www.develop-online.net/news/european-commission-approves-uk-games-tax-breaks/0190657
http://www.develop-online.net/news/revealed-the-uk-video-games-cultural-test/0113605

[knifeySpoonie]

Ive posted about this in Business sub, but to me it makes sense, the UK is a very expensive place to live and we want to protect the industry. Other country's have much lower corporate tax rates and red tape and lower living costs making them much more attractive to investors. So this helps to level the playing field a little.

Also it's not a flat everyone in the UK gets this, you do still have to meet Criteria such as having British characters and making your game culturally British, its exactly the same tax breaks as the film and theatre industry's get for cultural works.

Its great as it acknowledges the fact games are becoming culturally significant, and a lot of the proposals help out smaller firms like the film side of the business helps out independent film makers. It's not a "hey come work in Britain the tax is low" tax break that makes it unfair on other country's.

[s0]

i cant wait to play all those new james bond games

[knifeySpoonie]

i cant wait to play all those new james bond games

I just want another James Pond

.... such awesomeness

[Noogai03]

well gamedev is one of the few things we're not completely shit at so I guess they want to encourage it

Also, why the HELL are they making developers base their games and characters in the UK to get the tax break? That discourages space sims or fantasy games or tomb raider style stuff or basically anything, because most games aren't set in specified countries anyway...

[Schoq]

and yet the tomb raider games explicitly have you playing as a british person, sometimes in britain too :P

[Udderdude]

Where's my tea drinking contest game?

[Noogai03]

and yet the tomb raider games explicitly have you playing as a british person, sometimes in britain too

ok, Indiana jones style temples (although he does spend time in england but you probably wouldn't put that in a game)

[Noogai03]

Where's my tea drinking contest game?

mash space to gulp tea
you have to manage the temperature so you don't burn your throat
sugar affects your score

OMG TEA DRINKING WITH SURGEON SIMULATOR CONTROLS
mind gears are whirring hang on

or you could have a version where you pour tea into a cup with surg.sim. controls
SIMULATED PARTICLE HYDROPHYSICS FOR TEA
special sugar cube dissolution algorithms

it's a shame I'm bad in 3d and have no idea how to make surg. sim. style games, I have so many awesome ideas, like surg. sim. monopoly with guns

I should carry this on in Pitch Your Game Topic lol

EDIT: sorry for the double post guys

[moi]

uk games will soon become a long, boring midsomer murders episode

[feminazi]

british narration is what killed racing games

[SirNiko]

It seems like the points system is set up such that you're not strictly restricted to placing the game in the UK - you can choose another setting and make up enough points through the characters and hiring locals for key development roles.

Even then, it's not particularly hard to work it in if you did want the points for setting. A sci-fi game might have a flash-back style introduction set in Britain, or maybe a holodeck where you pretend to be in a pub in the UK. Presuming you think highly enough of the UK to want to promote it, I don't see anything wrong with bending your artistic vision to include your home country.

[Muz]

Most of the world was under British territory at one time. Raid temples and export tea in British India! Fight commies in British Malaya! Wild west gunfights in British America! Ride through deserts and wrestle alligators in British Australia!

Note that Papua New Guinea, Egypt, Burma, bits of Antartica, South Africa, Nigeria were all under British rule at one point or another, so you still have plenty of room for exotic locales and tomb raiding.

But it's lame that such restrictions give tax breaks (i.e. we'll take less of your money) instead of giving grants.

[Noogai03]

poirot fps needs to happen

[Superb Joe]

well gamedev is one of the few things we're not completely shit at so I guess they want to encourage it

Also, why the HELL are they making developers base their games and characters in the UK to get the tax break? That discourages space sims or fantasy games or tomb raider style stuff or basically anything, because most games aren't set in specified countries anyway...

because its using the same criteria for film and television and they dont give a fuck how much you enjoy and want video games of star wars and HBO's Gay Fairy Adventure, Peter Jackson's Gay Fairy Adventure, Peter Jackson's Continuing Gay Fairy Adventure, Peter Jackson's Further Adventures of the Gay Fairies part III: A Fun Picnic, Marvel Comics' Norse Gay Fairy on Steroids, or the various other gay fairy products on the market. they want to subsidise jobs in film and television.