Everyone has heard of at least one or two games they were looking forward to that got canceled. It is an unfortunately common bit of news that has grown that much more common with the trends in the gaming industry of big-budget game mass-production.
What many of us are not always as conscious of amidst our disappointment is how painful those canceled games can be to the developers, who still have various tax requirements associated with the now-defunct products.
Tiga, The Independent Games Developers Association, has proposed to the UK government that canceled games be given the same treatment as canceled films. If such a product can pass the cultural test such that it’s clear it was actually intended for release, the developers would be given a bit of tax relief.
It seems like a natural extension to treat game projects in a similar vein as film, given the similarities in the production itself (especially for films with large amounts of CG or entirely CG animation). One can only hope the UK agrees.
