Scottish game developers could relocate to Ireland, says Realtime Worlds

LookingFor

Interesting article...

http://www.develop-online.net/news/32926/Realtime-Worlds-threatens-tax-escape-to-Ireland

In what is increasingly looking like a brinkmanship contest with the UK government, Scottish developer Realtime Worlds has threatened to move its offices to Ireland unless game tax breaks arrive in the UK.

The Irish government is making a pugnacious move to revive its economy by offering Scottish game studios what they desire the most – reasonable corporate tax breaks.

And Realtime Worlds – one of the shining stars in Scotland’s game development sector - has revealed that it would be interested in moving if Ireland comes calling.

“If the package on offer in Ireland was attractive we’d have to give it serious consideration,” said Colin Macdonald, studio manager of Realtime Worlds.

Realtime Worlds currently employs around 300 staff following an aggressive expansion scheme. The studio has made a significant impact on the game sector with the Xbox 360 sleeper-hit Crackdown and the upcoming All Points Bulletin.

Facing the loss of one of its most prodigious creative forces in the entertainment sector, the Scottish government has issued an immediate response to the threat. Scotland wants independence from Britain’s harmful game tax policy.

“Our view is that Scotland should have control of key fiscal levers in order to do more,” said a spokesman for the Scottish government.

“After giving it consideration we didn’t relocate to Canada,” said Macdonald, “but we lost some of our key staff to that country.

“Ireland is a lot closer to home than Canada, so Scottish policy-makers should regard it 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.”

Kind of always wondered why games development seems to have mostly overlooked ireland entirely, but I guess that's due to Britain being just next door, and game development being so well established there. But this may present an opportunity to attract some more studios here.

pablomakaveli

I was reading in a newspaper a couple of weeks ago that it was suggested to the government to target games companies at the economic conference they had a few weeks back.

Definitely a good idea i think.

Retr0gamer

Interesting. Say a documentary on the scottish games development scene by the consolevania guys and all the developers were saying they were seriously considering moving to canada or asking the british government for the same corporate tax cuts. I'd say it would be a much more attractive proposition to just move across the water.

noodler

Ah our economic one-trick poony!

cherryghost

i rather enjoyed crackdown!