Government budget backs UK games

By Robert Purchese Published 24 March, 2010

"We need to keep British talent" - Darling.

UK Chancellor Alistair Darling has pledged support for the UK games industry in today's Budget.

He hasn't detailed specifics, but promised to reinvigorate the sector by taking similar measures to the film industry, and said we should concentrate on keeping top British talent here.

"Our creative industries are a huge source of jobs, wealth and pride," said Darling, reported by GamesIndustry.biz. "I will offer help to the computer games sector similar to the steps which are helping to restore the fortunes of the British film industry.

"This is a highly successful, growing industry, with half its sales coming from exports and we need to keep British talent in this country."

Perhaps Darling will put basketball hoops in offices and ensure break times are spent skateboarding. That's cool, right?

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (32) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • makariel #1 2 years ago

    There are politicians who don't want to ban video games?

  • stuarty_2003 #2 2 years ago

    All I can think of is Blackadder.

  • macksed #3 2 years ago

    what's with the end of this article? It's probably a largely unpopular (with the tabs if they decided to pick up on it) decision.

  • Kerome #4 2 years ago

    Ahum yes. The right noises, but we will see it when it happens I guess.

  • Hendo #5 2 years ago

    All I can think of is Blackadder.

    Don't slouch, Darling.

  • RexRunti #6 2 years ago

    Better late than never. Just hope the Tories don't over turn it in their emergency budget after the election.

  • GreyBeard #7 2 years ago

    Cameron already pledged his support to the sector... but since when were pre-election promises guaranteed to be upheld :'(

  • Fab4 #8 2 years ago

    All I can think of is Blackadder.

    You see, Baldrick may look like a monkey who's been put in a suit and then strategically shaved, but he is a brilliant politician. The number of votes I cast is simply a reflection of how firmly I believe in his policies.
    Edited by 1 at 24/03/10 @ 15:18

  • darkmorgado #9 2 years ago

    About time!

    What I was even more surprised by is that when he announced this, the entire House of Commons actually CHEERED.

  • MightyMouse #10 2 years ago

    So in concrete terms he's announced that he's going to do an announcement in the future. Right.

  • darkmorgado #11 2 years ago

    Better late than never. Just hope the Tories don't over turn it in their emergency budget after the election.

    It's not very likely that Cameron will get in, tbh, especially not after being caught out lying about his voting record, and the mess regarding Ashcroft.

    Will be a hung parliament, and the Lib Dems will side with Labour (I should know, im in the Lib Dem party)

  • sonicyoda #12 2 years ago

    Despite the fact that this man is a complete joke, he's talking complete sense here. The British games industry is certainly thriving and it's brilliantly suprising when you discover games you thought were developed in North America were in fact developed here. House of the Dead Overkill certainly had that effect on me.

  • Slipstream #13 2 years ago

    and rightfully so. We, without a doubt, have some of the best talent in the industry.

  • mcwildcard #14 2 years ago

    Alan Titchmarsh will be livid.

  • booner #15 2 years ago

    FINALLY. Too little too late.

  • crazyhorse174 #16 2 years ago

    Yes, but will any games producers actually want to live in a country where they cant afford to drive to work because of crazy petrol prices, cant let their hair down at the weekend because booze and fags cost too much and where most of their wages are taken as income tax?!

  • abot #17 2 years ago

    Finally!!

    But Tax Credits will not be enough to compete with Canada. The Warner Bros. Montreal deal included a Government grant of C$7 million. Canada has upped the ante offering cash on top of tax credits.

    I wonder how many companies will setup shop after going through this recession. Even with tax breaks how many companies can or are willing to grow and expand further. Most of the redundancies and dev closures were caused by devs who were either too big or too scared to take chances on new IP and cancelled projects.

    Edited by 3 at 24/03/10 @ 16:44

  • hiddenranbir #18 2 years ago

    Of course they are.

  • Murton #19 2 years ago

    While his pledge of some sort of support is welcome there's no guarantee of it actually happening. Assuming that Labour are serious about this pledge though there are some issues with it:

    1: it's a Labour promise and as such will only see the light of day if Labour wins the election (unless the winning party copies it) and even then any tax breaks will be at least partially absorbed by their upcoming raise in National Insurance in 2011 that was announced in last years Pre-Budget Report.

    2: all indicators point toward a hung parliament, assuming a Labour minority victory they will only be able to pass such a motion with the support of the opposing parties. Now both the Tories and the Lib Dems are pro-games industry as part of a digital/green economy, but they both see addressing the budget deficit as a priority. So the timing will be absolutely key, too early and they may vote against in order to keep the budget deficit plans on track.

    3: there's no guarantee that the games industry will channel any support offered into creating or safeguarding long term jobs as the Chancellor suggests. Just as the VAT cut wasn't passed onto consumers by many companies who instead used it to maintain profit margins while still laying off workers and freezing both pay and recruitment, the games industry could equally just pass on any tax credits to shareholders in the form of dividends and continue doing as they are now.

    So while the promise of support for the industry from the Budget is exciting, it's a little too soon to be celebrating in my opinion.
    Edited by 1 at 24/03/10 @ 16:45

  • LazyNinjaUk #20 2 years ago

    Finally the government have stopped ignorring the fact that the gaming industry is a multi-billion pound industry.

  • RobotRocker #21 2 years ago

    Provisionally a good thing, particularly treating it as a creative industry like the film industry as it makes provisions for a high risk environment and should stop studios collapsing in on themselves and shedding jobs if the games don't do spectacular numbers.

    Sort out that Digital Economy Bill next though and then we can talk. I don't like PEGI taking over ratings and I sure as hell don't like the disconnection for "IP infringement" they are adding as there is all sorts of reasons that can go wrong and the fact that it is targeting Wikileaks in particular is unbelievably alarming.

  • RodHull #22 2 years ago

    I'm hoping that the reason behind this isn't to nurture home grown talent or revitalise the sector but is in fact purely to piss off Keith Vaz.

    I hate you Keith Vaz and I'm allowed to say that as you're my crooked MP. God bless democracy!

  • Incarta #23 2 years ago

    Many, many years late. Too late?

  • duckncover #24 2 years ago

    <a href="">http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=7tkVpj3xrMs</a href>

  • RexRunti #25 2 years ago

    It's not very likely that Cameron will get in, tbh, especially not after being caught out lying about his voting record, and the mess regarding Ashcroft.

    Will be a hung parliament, and the Lib Dems will side with Labour (I should know, im in the Lib Dem party)

    Well the only thing I took from that is that a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the Labour party. Besides the Lord Ashcroft issue isn't really an issue with the voters as it doesn't affect them at all really, unlike Labour's biggest supporter stopping them from having a holiday this Easter, Labour having several non-dom lords themselves and thanks to the new Tory Doner Tax it won't matter where he resides anyway.

    But back to the games, I just wish they'd done it sooner rather than be in the situation where there is no longer any British publishers and the developers are limited to a few foreign owned power houses.

    PS I would prefer another 5 years of this corrupt, Stalinistic disaster of a government then the truley horrific proposal of a hung parliament.

  • darkmorgado #26 2 years ago

    Well the only thing I took from that is that a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the Labour party.

    Not correct, as the Lib Dems are only going to offer their support on the grounds that Labour supports many of their policies - such as a £10,000 income tax threshold, tougher legislation on school bullying, better support for people with disabilities, etc

  • Freki #27 2 years ago

    Until there are some actual details this is just another soundbite from a budget all about the next election rather than what it should have been about.

  • lucky_jim #28 2 years ago

    Unless he matches or beats Canada's tax breaks, this is just noise. It's the right kind of noise though, now lets see some action.

  • secombe #29 2 years ago

    Somewhat ironic though, considering they've slashed FE and HE budgets for next year. The 'British talent' won't have a chance to develop if we go down the bizarre route of cutting funding for education to 'save' our country some money.

    Rarely talked about, but Colleges etc are literally having to turn people away who want to study now.

  • Syrette #30 2 years ago

    British Government in doing something right shocker.

  • Murton #31 2 years ago

    "I would prefer another 5 years of this corrupt, Stalinistic disaster of a government then the truley horrific proposal of a hung parliament."

    Not sure whether to agree or disagree with this. Even with it's almost constant problems with "rebel" backbenchers Labour have still succeeded in getting a lot of seriously dumb ideas through the Commons, something that would be much more difficult to achieve with a minority government. At the same time though a minority government could have trouble getting decent proposals through if opposition members go partisan and vote against for the sake of it.

    In principal I agree that a hung parliament is a scary concept, but I'm not sure if five more years of this would be that much better, unfortunately most people in this country believe they vote for the Prime Minister and not their local MP and do so based on a small number of issues rather than the whole picture, so for better or worse another five years of thus "corrupt Stalinist disaster" seems quite likely.

  • teabagger #32 2 years ago

    Better late than never I suppose, but it'll be many years before we can compete with Canada given how long the sector has been ignored.