French government promises tax breaks and subsidies for companies who relocate from UK to France.

The video game industry is one of the many sectors concerned by the Brexit in British lands. To the difficult circumstances in which are companies operating in the United Kingdom and with platforms as Games4EU do not do more than argue the serious problems that will cause the Brexit in the British industry. France wants to fish in troubled waters and proposes a change of scenery to the English companies.

Join the Game is the campaign promoted by the French Government to attract to their lands the British potential, proposing tax breaks and funding to interested teams. The website explains that “Join the Game illustrates the commitment of the French Government offer to publishers and foreign developers, studios and independents, opportunities to discover the optimal environment to Excel in the video game industry”.

France has noted, moreover, that the French Government “has proposed is to remain an important centre for the development of games”, in a country in which industry generated, according to the portal GamesIndustry, more than 4.9 billion euros.

The campaign is likely to have an appreciative audience among the British gaming industry, where concern about the impact of Brexit on access to talent, markets and funding is widespread. In November, Ian Livingstone, the founder of Games Workshop and one of the leading lights of Britain’s industry, warned: “By removing certainty and many of the existing benefits of EU membership, it is feared that Brexit will hinder the UK industry’s ambition to be the best in the world.”

A survey in March 2017, released the day after Britain invoked Article 50 and confirmed its intention to withdraw from the EU, revealed that more than two-fifths of the nation’s games companies were considering relocation. Fifty-seven per cent of UK games companies employ workers from the EU, and at those companies EU workers represent, on average, a third of all employees, according to UKIE, the industry body that carried out the research.

Source: The Guardian