And remember, they speak French in many parts of Canada so they will to keep speaking that weird language that French people are so attached to (joke).
Don't know if I'd say many parts of Canada. There are only two provinces with large french populations to my knowledge, and another with a decent sized french population in one tiny corner of the province. Though there are certainly plenty of people who are bilingual.
But hey, I say if the EU wants to drive businesses away at a time when their economy is in the toilet and entire countries are risking total government and economic collapse then we'd be happy to have them. I completely agree with you on this; what kind of idiots actually make policy to level the playing field amongst their members without realizing that there's the rest of the fucking globe outside of Europe?
BrotherRool said:
So huge layoffs in Canada suggest a) the Canadian game industry isn't doing well and it's not a good time to go to Canada
I think teams like Bioware, Ubisoft Montreal, and Eidos Montreal may have other thoughts on that. Honestly, EA laying off employees isn't really indicative of the health of the gaming industry anywhere considering their talent for buying up talented development teams and either running them into the ground, or disbanding them as soon as a single game doesn't meet their unreasonable expectations. EA firing people isn't really even news to be honest with how common it is.
Does Ubisoft ever stop bitching? Really, every word out of their mouth is about how someone is screwing them; pirates, the government, used games, console limitations, etc.
I guess that's part of the problem. Criticism of the EU has become something drawn along party lines rather than something we can all line up in agreeing that on at least SOME matters it's completely wrong.
Sure we can agree that on some matters the EU is wrong - however, I'm in the EU, and I'm fully agreeing with the EU on banning videogame developer tax breaks.
All the tax breaks do is give more money to large (and mostly French) companies, out of the public pocket. They may threaten to move, in which case - good riddance to bad rubbish.
So your issue with tax breaks is they leave those that don't do give tax breaks at a disadvantage?
Well EU banning those tax-breaks won't eliminate that advantage, that just means we will ALL be equally disadvantaged, the opposite of egalitarianism which is supposed to raise everyone up. You still have all of USA and Canada and other countries giving huge tax breaks and I remember recently at a UK developers conference they were actively poaching developers to emigrate to Canada for work on games development.
This shouldn't be personal satisfaction of "good riddance to tax dodging French" as there is the major issue of games not being developed in Europe as much. All our great talent bloody well disappearing, those remaining not making as much money, and taking in even less taxes.
I'm in favour of government getting more tax revenue, but that doesn't always mean higher tax rates. It's the same logic that a grocers can make more money trying to sell potatoes at 1 coin per potato rather than 1000 coin per potato.
Remember if the company leaves the EU or massively downsizes and operates in friendlier countries, then the EU gets less money or no money AT ALL! That hurts the public purse more.
And remember, they speak French in many parts of Canada so they will to keep speaking that weird language that French people are so attached to (joke).
Don't know if I'd say many parts of Canada. There are only two provinces with large french populations to my knowledge, and another with a decent sized french population in one tiny corner of the province. Though there are certainly plenty of people who are bilingual.
But hey, I say if the EU wants to drive businesses away at a time when their economy is in the toilet and entire countries are risking total government and economic collapse then we'd be happy to have them. I completely agree with you on this; what kind of idiots actually make policy to level the playing field amongst their members without realizing that there's the rest of the fucking globe outside of Europe?
Bold for how succinctly this sums up the absurdity of EU's decision.
Ubisoft already has put down a LOT of roots in Montreal (you may have seen the name Ubisoft Montreal more often of recent) and I wonder if it was precisely because of this decision. It's a shame EU seems to have resorted to Tall Poppy Syndrome in times of economic woes. Anyway, I think French companies like Ubisoft are mainly focusing on Montreal, it doesn't need to be in EVERY province.
Brevity would be appreciated, you posted 2-pages of essay formatted text
Look I don't buy into this "conservative/progressive" pigeon holing. I have conservative opinions and I have progressive opinions:
Conservative opinions:
-In favour of more liberal gun laws
-in favour of more liberal hunting laws
-Doesn't consider 2003 Invasion of Iraq illegal
-Supports targeted killing of terrorist suspects
-opposed to non-medically mandated late-term abortion (i.e. where viable delivery is possible)
-Opposed to EU having powers of criminal law in UK (i.e. it should remain a trade body, and an accountable + representative one)
Progressive opinions:
-supports reform of House of Lords to 100% democratic appointment with reasonable terms of office
-opposition to persecution of Homosexual
-in favour of same sex-marriage
-generally in favour of abortion and all current forms of contraception
-In favour of an internet with low censorship (i.e. anti-SOPA)
-Supports NHS's continued prominence
-Supports public funding of education
-Considers invasion of Iraq a mistake
PS: I don't have an opinion on immigration
Regardless, my concerns about EU should stand on their OWN, not in context of where I can be pigeon-holed. Surely anyone can argue how ALL of EU not having tax breaks for games just leaves EU countries at disadvantage to any country that does. This U measure was based on concern of brain drain, this recognises that this talent can up sticks and move.
As to matters of focus, the British government was democratically elected by the British people to govern them. It is their democratic responsibility to argue for their country, not to be callous and cruel to others, just the duty of being their country's advocate. Like a lawyer in a trial, it's not their job to argue the other side. Similarly the news has in interest in focusing on the loss of their own country, I have watched the BBC news (only TV news I can stand) and as far as I've found they've always given the overall "death-count" first and THEN focused on how many are Britons, even if it is just to say no Britons are known to be victims.
I do not read the Daily Mail nor anything like it, I don't bother myself with what stupid arguments they make. One must be wary of not giving too much attention to the worst arguments or risk making a straw man argument, losing sight of the issue which is EU forbidding tax breaks for at least video games industry. I did hear on QI Steven Fry defending EU rulings on labelling and standards saying they were identical to what the UK had had in place for years... so what was the point in EU ruling if we were already doing it for ourselves? It's more a benefit to incompetent nations who can't stop the spread of botulism infected meat. UK Customs can do that with or without the EU.
So, not harmful like Daily Mail hyperbolically claim, but apparently not beneficial either... on the front of labelling and food standards at least.
I don't read the daily mail but like you I read the news on The Escapist, and THEY covered this story of stopping Tax breaks for games in Europe and I think it's a fairly solid argument that that is going to leave European game developers at a disadvantage. Ubisoft already have a large amount of resources invested in Canada and it could just be that EA are playing silly-buggers (again) with the hiring and firing game, Ubisoft could swoop in.
I don't know about border searches across continental europe but I'll be damned if I'll be in favour of removing all border checks between UK and continental Europe. It's bad enough that we are forbidden from owning ANY kind of weapon for self defence, it's only tolerable because UK Authorities do quite a thorough job of keeping guns getting in to circulation (for now) but not if all border checks are gone! All the cheap £60 Makarov pistols can be smuggled over by the boatload and with no standard stops-and-checks that'll become geometrically harder to stop.
If you're a rational human being, to some extent your views should be pigeon-holed. There is a broad generalisation of socialism vs individualism, crossed against personal liberty vs conservatism and many many issues can be decided by deciding where you fall there. Part of the problem is humans aren't completely rational and party lines ended up being drawn funnily. Particularly in the USA where the people who believe in individual freedom from government control financially are the same people who believe in tighter government control over individual freedom over all aspects of human life. I think most of your views seem to be 'rational conservative' which is the conservative I have respect for. The sort of people who say 'I don't see why the government should choose what I give to charity' and then actually do give their wealth to charity.
And then of course there are issues where the solution doesn't fall into those and there it's wrong to slot neatly into party holes. For instance I used to be pro-abortion just because I felt I was a counter-cultural christian and that's where my views should lie. And then my friend pointed out I was doing it without thinking about the issue and I realised that I felt people should have the choice to live and I personally don't believe mothers have total control over their child. ( I realise this is a terrible illustration because it's controversial. If it's okay with you if you could treat it as an example of how my mind works and move on it would be great because I'm not totally emotionally mellow about this, but it is to date the most significant example of me changing from the party-lines you decried to being more sensible about an issue)
Um you asked me to be brief so I'll try (it's nothing something I'm very good at )so
1. As a citizen of this country, I want my politicians to represent me in going out of their way to help other people regardless of nationality. I understand that other people think the government should be looking after the interests of the people who pay into it, but I will live my life in the hope that in some small way I can change that view.
2. I think it's a shame that the news is interested in the deaths of their own country. As you can tell, I generally think serious national identity is bad. (Whilst unserious national identity is awesome, Cymru Am Byth! Wales rocks!)
3. (whilst Britain is an island so I know this doesn't apply very much, but as I said before I don't think of the EU as what it can do for us but in terms of what it can do for people generally) controlling over the non island countries keeps everyone involved safer for less effort.
4. My think about borders was more for the countries on the mainland again. The EU has done a fantastic job at taking us away from the at the throats arm race we used to have. You can get across to France easily and with little fuss, some people even commute there but because you have to take a boat/train to do it remove border checks for us doesn't particularly prove efficiency of intermixing.
5. It will be interesting to see the results of the tax. I admit that whilst I don't think they'll lose developers they could lose publishers, as you pointed out, which would be a loss of money. The test case would be the UK who are in a similar position and don't have the tax breaks France has. I'm not aware of a major publisher withdrawing support from the UK for tax reasons and if that's true, then this EU tax thing is essentially safe and not a bad thing, if major publishers have moved out of the UK then I will agree with you on this and a reduction of EU powers, or at least more flexibility in them.
So your issue with tax breaks is they leave those that don't do give tax breaks at a disadvantage?
Well EU banning those tax-breaks won't eliminate that advantage, that just means we will ALL be equally disadvantaged, the opposite of egalitarianism which is supposed to raise everyone up. You still have all of USA and Canada and other countries giving huge tax breaks and I remember recently at a UK developers conference they were actively poaching developers to emigrate to Canada for work on games development.
This shouldn't be personal satisfaction of "good riddance to tax dodging French" as there is the major issue of games not being developed in Europe as much. All our great talent bloody well disappearing, those remaining not making as much money, and taking in even less taxes.
I'm in favour of government getting more tax revenue, but that doesn't always mean higher tax rates. It's the same logic that a grocers can make more money trying to sell potatoes at 1 coin per potato rather than 1000 coin per potato.
Remember if the company leaves the EU or massively downsizes and operates in friendlier countries, then the EU gets less money or no money AT ALL! That hurts the public purse more.
Well, you could be making more strawmen, but in that case you'd have to move your computer to a field.
No, my issue with tax breaks is that they give more money to companies that don't need it. I don't think that France is at an advantage giving tax breaks, as a country anyway - a few companies in France have an advantage, and that benefits nobody but the executives and shareholders of said companies. And I'd take a guess that most of the shareholders are legally located in tax havens anyway.
Our great talent disappearing because we don't have tax breaks? As in, the talent up and moving because of the tax breaks in other countries? As I said before - good riddance to bad rubbish, because the talented people probably have healthy lives and thus also have commitments and families. The companies will move, which will result in unemployed talent, thus giving a stronger edge to companies sticking around - and maybe we'll see new companies and more innovation.
I don't believe the EU stands to lose financially due to banning of tax breaks to people who already do everything possible to avoid paying any money back ever.
And as for games I play - we'd lose on what, Ubisoft? Dear god no, where will I ever get games so horribly mangled by executive decisions I can't play them?
Overall, I view abolishing of videogame tax breaks as a net positive to the EU financially and creatively.
EDIT: Oh wait, Quantic Dream too. I forgot about them about as soon as I stopped seeing the name, as I always do. Heavy Rain developer lost, huh? Yeah. Not gonna care.
Here's the thing: the EU is not the US, and it's trying to gain more power than even the Federal government of the US has. The federal government has its sources of tax and leaves everything else to the states. This encourages competition between the states for industries. That is a good thing.
Secondly, where in the hell does the EU get off telling its members what laws they can and cannot pass? The EU does not have that power, nobody gave them that power. They have taken it. At most, all they should do is shape monetary policy. Does the FED in the United States have any power whatsoever to shape fiscal policy, to affect taxes and spending? Of course not, they are unelected and therefore have no say in what the country does with its money.
Also, just wanted to point out that I have no idea who this Wouter Pieke guy is. The European Commission Directorate General for Competition is a bureaucracy headed by Alexander Italianer. No one person has control over this decision, but I would like to point out that the people who do are unelected.
And I AM a conservative Euro-sceptic, and this is exactly the sort of thing I was worried the EU would pull. I occasionally doubted the evidence behind my beliefs, but thank you Europe for making me even more Tory than I already was.
Not to say it doesn't suck for you guys, but I'm going into computer sciences this year, and happen to live in Canada.
So, doesn't sound like fun times, but I don't mind more developers out here
Are the EU utter idiots to think they can remove tax-breaks to prevent competitive poaching when they fail to realise that just leaves ALL of the EU at huge disadvantage to the rest of the world. This is what the EU was created for, to stand up to the United States but this is FAILING in that capacity!
Oh, that's alright. The EU isn't failing to the US. It's failing to Canada.
Excuse me while I go giggle in a corner.
I would disagree. America is not exactly the shining beacon of happiness for the gaming industry that people think (excluding companies, I guess). Yes, we do have tax breaks for them (even though they are old tax breaks for older industries), just as for any rich anything. But we also have (and it shames me to say this) an old man government, that has repeatedly tried censorship and bans for games, while at the same time ignoring basic workplace violations (unpaid overtime, workplace stress, occasional cases of pay below state minimum wage, etc.) with the general "What are they complaining about? All they're paid to do is play games."
Hell, I think the big reason companies still operate in the US is that people will still work in those conditions.
Of course, you might just see this as a load of baseless whining.
Ubisoft already has put down a LOT of roots in Montreal (you may have seen the name Ubisoft Montreal more often of recent) and I wonder if it was precisely because of this decision.
See, I'm not even sure it's because of this decision because Ubisoft Montreal has been making some great games for a long time now. Name a popular Ubisoft franchise and they probably made it: Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and Assassin's Creed all started with them. Granted they've had some stinkers, but it's to be expected given their size and the fact that they were handling some licensed properties. I mean christ, according to wikipedia the studio has 1700 employees.
Frankly, I'm not even sure what other Ubisoft divisions do aside from help out Montreal or take over their franchises when they move onto new things.
this kind of policy/law could work if Europe was the only place in existance...however on a world that not only has other continents but various ways to reach them, on which people exist all it will accomplish is a industry migration as threatened in the article
How does Harper remind you of the Joker? It's hard to think of a less jovial politician.
On the one hand, I find it funny that this case is an example of the EU's move doing exactly the opposite of what it's ostensibly for. On the other hand, it means they're taking a firm stand against something they have a problem with, and they'd have a fair shot at shifting the blame to whatever country the developers migrate to on the basis of having the high ground. And on that note, there's the possibility these developers are just saber-rattling and it isn't working.
More Canadian stuff would be interesting, but then again, Ubisoft already has its Montreal studio, dunno about that other developer, so I'm not sure what effect this 'change' would have - is it just changing the headquarters, and if so, isn't that just a nominal change?
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