The future of digital Britain

By: Grahame | February 7th, 2010

I have been endlessly frustrated over the past few years in reading about the UK government’s complete apathy towards encouraging games developers to set up shop on our isles.

That frustration has only been exacerbated by the news from the government of British Columbia in Canada. The Canadian establishment has announced it will be offering some enticing tax breaks to studios beginning new projects starting from August this year.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen summed it up: “We are responding to industry needs and recognize that film, television, animation, and visual effects companies contribute over a billion dollars annually to the B.C. economy and generate thousands of jobs.”

Canada’s tax incentives for movies don’t really need to be discussed, the country is used by virtually every top movie studio for shoots. It is its contribution to games development that should be commended however. According to Develop 100, the North American country hosts 10 of the top 100 studios in the world, and EA Canada holds the number two slot.

Seeing how Canada has become, and is continuing to, be a hub for some of the world’s best studios has made me rather green with envy. In Scotland we have the UK’s first Centre for Excellence in Computer Games Education , at the University of Abertay in Dundee.

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Dundee is a city that is crazy for games, there is Realtime Worlds and Ruffian, along with the amazing independent talent that is on display at such events as NEON. It’s an absolute crime we do not do more as a country to nurture this talent. It’s also an industry that is a huge money maker, something our government would do well to take notice of  as we crawl out of our financial recession.

Sadly I cannot find any glint of light amongst the clouds, something I could use to assure you all that there is a good chance of the UK embracing all this talent on its doorstep. Instead, my trawls through the internet and British press can only find bad news.

The Financial Times recently reported on that the junior minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Sion Simon, will be standing down come the February recess. Why does this matter? You may ask.

Well Mr Simon was a key figure (perhaps THE figure) in the process of bringing the digital economy bill to fruition. He was also sympathetic to videogamers, leaving a lovely message for the Facebook Group “Gamer’s Voice”, which you will know all about if you read my previous blog. “The government understands the importance of video games. we make games better and play games more in this country than anywhere else in the world. It’s an important industry and an important part of millions of people’s lives. But it’s a very young industry which is still finding its voice. I think this group is an important step in that process, and I’m glad to be a part of it,” he wrote.

Mr Simon will now stand as an MP in time for the coming election. I wish him all the best in his quest for election and do hope to see the forward-thinking politician become an outspoken voice for our developers.

As for the Bill he was working on? Well it has hit some problems it seems. Conservative opposition to a 50p tax on everyone with a phone line seems to be a major point of contention. The tax would be used “to pay for a pump-priming fund to encourage the expansion of faster communication networks,” according to the FT’s article. Having an excellent broadband service that would be future-proofed is something I would gladly pay a small tax rate for. Sadly, cross party squabbling may make this take longer than I would like.

So the it doesn’t look too bright for Britain’s digital future, with the likes of Canada making tremendous leaps, our government better get its act (and bill) together or we’ll be left in the dust. Dundee’s development studios (and others) can only take so many of these highly gifted graduates from Abertay before we see a “digital brain drain” of top developers and artists leaving the country.

Let’s pray it gets sorted before that happens.

A note: For those of you who have been reading my blog and enjoying its content, I urge you to watch the film “Moral Kombat” on this site. The film looks at the videogame violence debate and features interviews from nearly everybody that matters. It is essential viewing for anybody who has an interest in the debate, which should be all of you. It’s only available for this month though, so don’t wait around.