Kotick brands tax break snub ‘a terrible mistake’

Bobby Kotick has once again slammed the UK’s decision to scrap game tax breaks.

The CEO of the world’s biggest third-party games publisher said that the Coalition government’s u-turn on the matter “was a terrible mistake”.

In line with the view that this puts Britain at a disadvantage on the world stage, Kotick said: “there are so many other places that are encouraging the video games industry.”

According to the Telegraph, he also “refused to rule out moving its UK operations elsewhere”.

Late last year Activision put the Liverpool-based studio Bizarre Creations on a 90-day consultation period, which ends in February. There is a high possibility the studio will be offloaded to another company, or shut down.

Activision has another British games developer; the London-based FreeStyleGames, which builds the DJ Hero games.

Before last year’s General Election the Conservative Party pledged “unequivocally” to introduce game tax breaks, and said it would do so within a year of being in power. Weeks after forming a coalition government, the planned game tax breaks were said to be “poorly targeted” and were scrapped.

In November Develop revealed that the UK’s game studio workforce had contracted by nine per cent, though a large number of smaller studios were emerging.