To any readers interested in the audio bidness, I recommend looking into a subscription to Audio Media.  Not only do I recommend this because it’s free (it was when I first subscribed, at least), but it provides some good reads on a wide variety of audio topics, including music recording, post production, broadcast and, on occasion, sound for games.  It’s a UK-based publication so it helps put the spotlight on some companies and projects you might not otherwise hear about across the pond.  On top of that, it can be delivered to your email inbox every month in a nice Flash-based format (sorry, iPad users!) that makes navigating its pages quick and intuitive.  Oh and I guess that also saves paper or something.

Anyway, I discovered in Audio Media that the British government recently announced a tax relief program for the UK video games industry.  Since it’s rather short, and I can’t copy and paste the text from the digital version of the magazine, I’ll reproduce the article here:

The final Budget of the current British Government took place on 24 March, with a surprise tax relief announcement for the games industry.  The UK Chancellor, Alistair Darling, spoke in his Budget speech of the need to support the British game industry, and that it intends to introduce a sector of specific Games Tax Relief for the UK video games industry, similar to schemes that are in place for the UK film industry.  Dr. Richard Wilson, CEO of TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry, commented: “The Government has chosen the future over the past, growth over decline, success over failure.  Games Tax Relief will increase employment, investment and innovation in the UK games sector.”  TIGA has produced research that predicts that a tax relief measure of this kind should create or protect 3550 graduate level jobs, and could increase or safeguard £457 million in development expenditure.

Gareth Edmondson, Managing Director of Ubisoft Reflections, based in Newcastle, said of the move: “This is a real triumph for UK developers.  It will enable the UK games industry to remain a success story.”

In the run up to the forthcoming general election, the other main parties have outlined their own commitments to the industry.  Ed Vaisey, the Conservative party spokesperson for the game industry, told Develop magazine that the Conservatives would introduce game development tax breaks in its first budget if elected to form a government — though failed to provide much in the way of detail.  The Liberal Democrats initially criticised Labour’s tax break plans, but has since backed plans for state support of the industry.

After reading this, the first thing I said to myself was, “can you have a more British name than ‘Alistair Darling’?”  The second was, “yes, and it’s ‘Gareth Edmondson.’”

Aside from the very carefully-worded facts and figures — I’m looking at you, “create OR protect” and “increase OR safeguard” — this seems like a good move for the Brits.  At least to an outside observer who is blissfully ignorant to the inner-workings of the British government (AKA yours truly).  British-based developers have had some notable successes in the past, with Grand Theft Auto, Driver and Aliens vs. Predator counted among them, but it seems as though the already-small industry has been losing talent to other countries with greater financial incentives.  This move is seen as a way to “enable the UK games sector to compete on a more even playing field,” according to Jason Kingsley, chairman of TIGA and Rebellion co-founder.

This article claims that the UK game industry is comprised of “about 27,000 workers, including more than 9,000 developers.”  Yes, nine thousand developers.  Since the article doesn’t quote a source for those figures, I’m going to assume they came from TIGA and as such should be taken with a grain of salt.  The same article says that the industry contributes £1 billion annually to the UK GDP, so it’s easy to see why the government would want to protect and grow the business, though I haven’t been able to find much in the way of opposing views.

Now I know what you’re saying: “Dearest Mack, why would you care to see an opposing view so that you can form your own opinion when a perfectly good opinion has already been provided for you?”  Well I guess I’m just that crazy.  Oh and I’ve seen the sort of controversy that can arise from this situation before.

See, the city I currently call home, Boston, has been the center of recently implemented tax breaks for the film industry.  On the surface, this seemed like a great idea; it created a large number of jobs and would potentially have a big impact on tourism.  There have been a number of big-budget films made in and around Boston — Gone Baby Gone, one of the new Pink Panther movies and The Departed to name a few — and there are more being made all the time.

Unfortunately, it would seem that the Bay State isn’t immediately seeing much in the way of benefits from these tax incentives.  According to the Boston Globe, a Department of Revenue report showed that the state gets just 16 cents for every dollar spent on the incentive (the state spent about $100 million this fiscal year) and claims that most of the work flows to out-of-state companies.  Opponents see this cost as being far too great to justify the program, and say that “human services” are bearing the brunt of budget cuts necessary to keep the plan in place.  These critics proposed capping the incentive at $7 million per film in a bill presented in early March and were unanimously defeated.  The plan’s supporters view this as a long term investment, and say that there has been talk of studios being built in Massachusetts which would ensure more steady job creation.

All of this has me wondering what the downsides of the UK’s new tax relief program could be.  Maybe there aren’t any.  But you can be damn sure that the likes of Kotick and his army of bottom-line-centric lackeys will be very interested in this, and have no doubt already been looking into a way to milk it for all it’s worth.

What I imagine Kotick leading his minions in battle would look like

Personally, my bottom line is this:

Will this give us better games and start raising the industry standards out of the gutter?  It sure seems like it could.  And that’s something I can get behind.