Charitable handouts a complete pile of toss, says Wedgwood

Speaking with GI at Develop last week, Paul Wedgwood, the man behind Splash Damage, said that the idea of the UK games industry receiving tax breaks is "a complete pile of toss."

"I absolutely love game development in the UK," he said.

"I just don't like all this rubbish about us needing charitable handouts to be successful as an industry, it's a complete pile of toss. It isn't why we're suffering as an industry and I don't think it's going to solve it."

His comments come after a flurry of recent ELSPA and Tiga lobbying activity on the subject of tax breaks as a developer aid. Wedgwood himself believes the problem rests with the publishers themselves.

"It is difficult to recruit if you pay crap money, and the UK as a whole was paying rubbish money," he said.

"The money is there, the publishers have it, they can afford to pay staff in the UK exactly what they pay in the US, they've just got away with not having to."

Full interview through the link.

By Mike Bowden