Showing posts with label tax breaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax breaks. Show all posts

05 January 2007

London Games Academy?

If you believe, as I do, that there is a general convergence between films, virtual worlds and gaming, then it makes sense to nurture gaming talent in the same way as young filmmakers are promoted, for example at the London Film School. It seems that some in the UK Government get this too:

Woodward suggested that the industry should help to found an academy similar in function the successful London Film School. “The best way for the video games industry to have the talent and the skills it wants is to move into the hot seat itself; to come to the government and say 'we want to put some money into an - academy'”, he said.

Unfortunately, in his haste to dash any hopes of government handouts, Woodward loses the plot somewhat:

The minister appeared to dismiss hopes for tax breaks in the UK, as enjoyed by the film and other creative industries, saying that the games industry had moved beyond an early “rebel period” of “looking enviously at … tax breaks and other state incentives”.

If games are like films in deserving support - not least because they will generate jobs, revenue and tax - why not give them tax breaks just like films? What's the difference - apart from snobbery?