Government: Games Industry Support Hurts "Productivity Of The UK Economy"
"More productive" sectors need the money.
The coalition government continues to do a fine job of ignoring the video games industry, at a time when sales of products such as Call of Duty: Black Ops surpass similar landmark releases in the music and film markets.
Trade body TIGA has been campaigning for a domestic tax break for the industry, in order to cultivate a strong market for the UK. As part of its pitch, TIGA suggested that helping the games industry would mean more jobs and a big return for the national economy.
But Exchequer Secretary of the HM Treasury, David Gauke, disputes the proposal, because doing so would "divert investment from more productive sectors to the detriment of the productivity of the UK economy as a whole." Not giving a clearly profitable sector money makes sense, because now that money can go to another profitable sector that has likely had all kinds of help already. Apparently.
Spurious reasons aside, it will be interesting to note what industries are "more productive," given the coalition has essentially done an awful lot to stunt the UK industry's growth as it is.
"We do not accept the validity of [TIGA's] analysis because we feel that some of the assumptions underpinning those estimates are erroneous," Gauke added. "The research commissioned by the industry implicitly assumes that the investment incentivised by the subsidy is entirely additional to the UK economy. In reality, it is likely that the relief will displace investment from elsewhere in the economy, so the net impact on total UK investment could be limited.
"It does not appear to recognise that there would also be displacement, and that highly skilled graduates would not remain unemployed if they did not find work in the video games industry", he stated apparently unaware that this is true for all industries.
The debate rages on in the Commons.
Trade body TIGA has been campaigning for a domestic tax break for the industry, in order to cultivate a strong market for the UK. As part of its pitch, TIGA suggested that helping the games industry would mean more jobs and a big return for the national economy.
But Exchequer Secretary of the HM Treasury, David Gauke, disputes the proposal, because doing so would "divert investment from more productive sectors to the detriment of the productivity of the UK economy as a whole." Not giving a clearly profitable sector money makes sense, because now that money can go to another profitable sector that has likely had all kinds of help already. Apparently.
Spurious reasons aside, it will be interesting to note what industries are "more productive," given the coalition has essentially done an awful lot to stunt the UK industry's growth as it is.
"We do not accept the validity of [TIGA's] analysis because we feel that some of the assumptions underpinning those estimates are erroneous," Gauke added. "The research commissioned by the industry implicitly assumes that the investment incentivised by the subsidy is entirely additional to the UK economy. In reality, it is likely that the relief will displace investment from elsewhere in the economy, so the net impact on total UK investment could be limited.
"It does not appear to recognise that there would also be displacement, and that highly skilled graduates would not remain unemployed if they did not find work in the video games industry", he stated apparently unaware that this is true for all industries.
The debate rages on in the Commons.
Companies:
TIGA
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