UK losing its game industry talent, says Football Manager developer
The games industry (much like the film industry) has the potential to survive economic meltdowns as consumers turn toward more affordable, accessible forms of home entertainment instead of going snowboarding, holidaying or having kids.
Which makes game companies very appealing entities for financially strapped authorities, and several countries are keen to offer tax breaks to encourage their games industries to grow. Despite a long and difficult battle by organisations such as TIGA, the UK isn't one of them.
Speaking to Develop, the head of London-based Sports Interactive (responsible for the prolific and popular Football Manager franchise), Miles Jacobson, tells of the alarming rate at which game development talent is leaving the UK.
"Professionally, my interests are focused on sports games, and the talent that weve lost from the UK in that field has been huge. Utterly huge," Jacobson explains.
Many games professionals are heading to Canada, where the government has offered tax breaks for quite some time. The country has become the world hub for the games industry.
But Jacobson goes on to insist that the UK games industry takes some of the responsibility for the waning talent, alongside keeping up the pressure on the government to level the playing field for UK game creation.
"What I hope will happen in that time is that the games industry will learn how to PR itself better than they are right now, where the industry can be treated respectfully on a mass-market scale."