With the London Games Festival kicked off in the capital, of course politicians needed to say a few words about the game industry and get their face plastered in the papers.

Brace yourselves.

As per the Guardian, Dan Foster, a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament in the UK has said,

“I hardly play any games – I’m not from that generation – but because of my job, I had to research the industry. The vast majority of my parliamentary colleagues are always wanting to ban the latest game, but they don’t know the details of the industry. Few people in this country realise how important it is to the UK economy.”

It’s nice to finally see a political statement that is not trying to sink a game or industry but let me tell you some of the background to his comment.

Currently a campaign called Games Up? is being led by the combined force of the developers trade association and the publishers trade association, Tiga and ELSPA respectively. Their goal is to lobby the UK government to provide tax breaks to allow for developers and publishers to compete on the same level as the rest of their EU and international counterparts.  Games Up? is also pushing for educational standards for UK universities to provide ciriculum which is up to par with games industry standards.  Currently, there are over 60 establishments providing courses, but only 4 of these meet the industry standards.

A shocking point is that other EU nations have these tax breaks, but the UK doesn’t.  Some countries even go as far as providing salary and R&D subsidizing to the games industry.  If the UK does not realize the worth and potential future cash flows (taxes) from their IP’s, assets, etc, then the UK government is failing to recognize that all of these items can easily be owned by foreign companies that can simply move them to another location whenever they want.  Once these firms leave the UK, then no more taxes for the UK government.  Worse yet is their ignorance as it is already happening.  In early 2007, Eidos opened a new studio, no where near their Wimbledon base in London, but in jolly old Canada.  Those sneaky Canadians!  They waive to your Queen with one hand and steal your GDP with the other.  But, they also give Eidos a break and allow for them to produce a new Deus Ex game (smart move gents, unless it’s in French).  Eidos has also moved to establish studios in China as well, my guess is at much lower cost then a studio in Wimbledon.

With an exodus of IP’s, jobs, assets, and the lack of an ability to generate talent, will the games industry continue to last in the UK?  How will this effect us as gamers?

Seeing London’s fall from grace in regards to the finance industry, I am not too optimistic of the games industry in the UK having a different or better fate.

I’m personally not too sure on how well a purely foreign studio will produce quality games for an audience that is completely different culturally, politically, and economically.  It may work for cookie cutter FPS’s, but not sure if it will generate any really great new ideas in the way we are seeing them now (LBP, Fable II, Bioshock, Spore).  I say this because I’ve worked on developing a computer system where I’m in London, the business analyst is based in NY, the development team is in China, and the end users cover most of Europe, Middle East and Africa.  Yeah, it doesn’t work well because of a fair share of communication issues.  So now imagine China developing everything without ever having the business analyst translate, they just guess at what the end users want to see on the screen.  We’ve tried it, it was ugly.

What do you think?  Decline in quality titles as studios are moved to Bratislava where kicking a can is fun?  Or do you think it doesn’t matter, American culture is everywhere, they will be able to make a decent title that you would want to play?  Hit up the comments and give me some love, or hate.

Source: The Guardian