Tiga teams up with GDAA for tax break lobbying

The UK and Australian games development trade associations have announced they are working together to further push their respective tax break lobbying.

Greg Bondar, CEO of the Game Developers Association of Australia, and Dr Richard Wilson, CEO of UK trade association Tiga, today announced the move, saying they woild be "working more closely together to ensure that their respective governments gave their game developer members a ‘leg up’ by way of tax breaks."

The GDAA and Tiga now plan to share reserach findings that highlight the benefits tax breaks for games production would provide to both the games development sectors of Australia and of the UK and to their respective economies.

Campaigning for financial assistance for studios in both countries has been a point of policy for both trade associations in the past year.

"Australian and UK game developers can compete successfully against game developers across the globe when market conditions are fair," Bondar and Wilson said in a statement.

"However, the scales are increasingly tipped against them when the governments of other countries, especially Canada, heavily subsidise their game developers.

"With 300+ companies involved in the video game industry in Canada, some 56% are now developing proprietary technology due to the funding initiatives of the Canadian government."