Ireland considering game industry tax breaks to encourage growth

The Republic of Ireland government's consideration over lending tax breaks to the games industry in order to bolster the local development market, and to encourage Scottish firms to relocate, the Herald Scotland reports.

"If we make it attractive for companies like that to set up here, then it will happen," says Donegal-born mogul Sir Gerry Robinson, who is working with authorities on projects to revive the Irish economy. "And the surest way to success is to offer those we are trying to attract in here from the games sector is to give them five-year tax holidays."

The Scottish games industry accounts for around 700 jobs, and manager of Realtime Worlds, Colin MacDonald, told the Herald that, "(…)Scottish policy-makers should regard [this] as a potentially ­serious threat. They need to make sure a level playing field here or they will lose some of us and lose out on a potential boom."

TIGA has lobbied hard for the UK to provide the same tax relief as countries such as Canada, Romania and central Europe in order to retain the quality of game development currently found across the UK so far without great success.

The boom in digital distribution and mobile/smartphone gaming has opened the floodgates for territories that previously struggled with physical distribution to compete on a global scale, with this particular area of the industry being regarded as the next potential economic boom.

"This sector is growing at a pace outstripping most traditional industries and Scotland is ideally placed to punch above its weight in seizing the new opportunities with its world-leading capability," MacDonald concludes.

The debate is already being used by Scottish officials to further push the demand for financial autonomy, but will undoubtedly lend strength toward TIGA's continued insistence that the UK government as a whole needs to make the British games industry competitive if it wants it to survive.