UK games industry doesn't need tax breaks, says labour Lord

Speaking to a collective of game industry players, from developers to media, at GameCity '09, Lord Puttnam has suggested the UK games industry needs structure more than it needs tax breaks.

The Labour Lord insisted that establishing a unifying structure, headed by a game council that would pursue the interests of the industry as a whole - much like the UK Film Council does for the film industry - would be more beneficial.

Perhaps not the best analogy to draw, given that a large proportion of the film industry refers to the UK Film Council as being the only building in the country where the door opens into your face, and is itself considered to be structured to funnel control directly into the BBC and the government, and away from independent studios.

Puttnam told attendees that tax breaks were a last resort for industries, and that the pedigree of UK game development talent currently leaving our shores in droves aren't necessarily gone for good. He did acknowledge that taxation playes a part, however.

"The challenge of the UK is to do in the game industry what it has managed to do in the film industry, which is create structure. And a part of that structure, but only a part of that structure, is a taxation arrangement."

TIGA has been petitioning the UK government to level the playing field with countries such as Canada by helping British studios to weather the economic storm through tax breaks, but it seems the possibility is further away than ever judging by the Labour Lord's views.