Activision: No UK tax break for videogames "a terrible mistake"

Bobby Kotick of Activision has called the scrapping of proposed tax incentives for the videogames industry in the UK ”a terrible mistake” to have made.

His choice of words may be hinting that the publisher could ‘quit’ the nation altogether with Liverpool’s Bizarre Creations already on 90-days notice.

Around 600 Activision employees are based in Slough in the UK, but could these placements be under threat? Already Bizarre has been dropped by the publishing giant after the less than great reception of the latest James Bond and racer Blur.

The UK’s coalition government argue that it’s better to alleviate all industry than to pick the videogames sector as ‘special’. They also remarked that the games industry wasn’t entirely all on the same page over the proposed tax breaks.

The notion that game incentives would drive up highly skilled jobs was more or less laughed at as ministers said other industries would be more than capable of offering the same benefits to the national economy.