Canadian Developer Downplays Importance of Tax Breaks

While game industry group TIGA continues to pound politicians on the subject of instituting Games Tax Relief for UK interactive developers, one Canadian developer feels like the UK's rich history of creating games created as tax breaks, at least when it comes to landing new publishing deals.

Behavior Interactive (formerly Artificial Mind and Movement or A2M, the company behind such games as Wet and Naughty Bear) CEO Remi Racine made the remarks to Develop (thanks The Escapist!), conceding that tax incentives are “pretty helpful,” but that when it comes to independent studios competing for dollars, “there are some very clever people in the UK who have beaten our studio at signing a deal with a publisher."

"It’s not, clearly, all about savings that tax breaks can give,” continued Racine.

When pitching projects, Racine stated that his firm calculates tax breaks and lets the group being pitched to know that 15-18 percent of production costs would be recouped, but he said that his firm has “never” won a publishing deal based on tax breaks alone.

Behavior Interactive adopted its new name in order to reflect its push into digital markets.