back to article Devs cheer as Osborne okays game coding tax relief

Chancellor George Osborne has heeded calls from the videogame industry and agreed to provide it with tax breaks. Announced in today's Budget, the scheme will commence in April 2013, giving time for civil servants and stakeholders to thrash out the details - "subject to State Aid approval and following consultation", as …

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  1. nemo20000
    Trollface

    Great...

    But what about the rest of us software developers. You know, the ones who don’t get to play games all day? <runs and hides>

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      plink plink

      Just a drop in the ocean, but used as a headline grabber.

  2. dogged
    FAIL

    £35,000,000

    You could just about make two AAA games for that, or approximately 1/3rd of an MMO.

    He's so generous.

    1. elsonroa
      Unhappy

      Re: £35,000,000

      But just think how many Zynga style 'social' and 'app' games you could churn out with all that money! Gaudy Skinner boxes don't cost that much to develop.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hmmm

    4000 jobs -that won't make a dent in the unemployment among the manual skills workforce

    £172 m return from £35 m sounds like dodgy accounting

  4. jai

    who can benefit?

    Do you have to be registered then as working for a games development company, in order to qualify? Is it just the companies that qualify? Does it apply to one-man-band type companies?

    Or can I get a tax break just for programming some basic and/or rubbish game and punting it on the mobile app stores?

    If so, suddenly anyone who knows a bit of javascript can cobble together a game using something like Appcelerator's Titanium, and tap into easy tax breaks :)

    1. NomNomNom

      Re: who can benefit?

      my game will be a side-scroller called Tax Avoider

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    App Store

    So if I go from being a sole trader to being a Limited company that publishes apps on iTunes will this benefit me?

    Or is it just for the MP's mates that know how to fiddle the system?

  6. RyokuMas
    Mushroom

    Too bad...

    ... that none of the coders will be able to afford fuel to get to their offices very soon.

    1. jai

      Re: Too bad...

      Surely coders are going to be amongst the most technically literate people in the country. And therefore, the best equipped for switching to a work-from-home model.

      1. Lallabalalla

        Re: Too bad...

        Yeah. If we weren't required to be constantly available for meetings, presentations, demands for feature-creep and "can you just .... it'll only take a minute..." :)

        Actually we have quite a few home workers on our books. But -and it's a big but - and I would *love* to work from home - I would need a bigger house... with an "office" of some kind away from the kids, with a decent desk, chair, lighting, workstation (replete with multiple monitors), internet pipe, and shares in the electricity company. Easier said than done.

  7. Matthew Smith

    Tax dodge

    So I write inventory tracking software for a living. All very dull. But if I write tracking software - WITH GUNS! - do I get a tax rebate?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't we already get this?

    AFAICT, our beancounters classify any new work as 'R&D', which already qualifies for tax breaks.

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