Lard

http://www.develop-online.net/news/35224/Global-publisher-sabotaged-UK-games-tax-breaks
 

High-profile firm held secret talks to fight Britain's bid for production subsidies

One of the biggest game companies in the world exerted pressure on the UK government and British trade associations to abandon plans for UK tax breaks, Develop can reveal.

While the majority of UK studios lobbied tirelessly to attain tax relief, one publisher counterbalanced the bid with a scandalous assertion of its own international influence and power.

Insiders tell us that the publisher spoke to well-placed parliament allies to dissuade any legislative measures.

This week the Lib-Con coalition cancelled all plans in place for game tax breaks – dashing the hopes of the UK sector which, after a two-year fight, eventually convinced the last Labour government to introduce the measures. Yet in a bitter twist, the Labour government was ousted in the May 2010 general election before the tax break plans were enacted.

But in the aftermath of the disappointing turn of events, it appears as though one publisher at least is celebrating the success of its own lobbying. This company had apparently viewed game tax relief as a measure that would have given the UK an unfair advantage over other nations.

Today TIGA, the UK trade association widely applauded for spearheading Britain’s push for game tax breaks, called for cross-industry unanimity on the issue.

“TIGA has campaigned rigorously for two years for Games Tax Relief,” CEO Richard Wilson told Develop.

He appealed to overseas companies, stating that they could tap into the huge talent base in the UK that would no doubt be bolstered by tax relief measures.

“We will not give up,” he added, “and we ask publishers to join us.”

No one but me is excited for this????? :(

 http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/06/25/seaman_3ds/

Yoot Saito is the creator of Seaman, the talking fish that caused a late 90s sensation here and went on to become the best selling Dreamcast game ever, beating out much pricier productions like Shenmue and Resident Evil Code: Veronica.

Recently, Saito has been giving some hints at a possible Seaman revival for Nintendo's new portable, 3DS. Of course, these hints come via Twitter.

A Saito follower Tweeted that, as a fan of the original Seaman, he's interested in seeing a 3D Seaman on 3DS with net connectivity similar to Nintendo's Moving Memo program, customization options for making the Seaman look like the player, and connectivity with Twitter.

In his reply to this Tweet, Saito said that he can't get into specifics, but hinted that the follower should keep on hoping for such a product.

In response to this, the follower said that on the day of release, he'd buy a 3DS Seaman along with a 3DS and would also recommend it to neighbors.

To this, Saito said that his development staff will work to respond to his expectations.

This certainly isn't confirmation, but Saito does seem to be hinting at a 3DS revival for the foul-mouthed man fish!


I'd be up for this. Seaman is one of the few DC games I never got to play.

All of the above except JRPGs

"
Wow... 
That is news. 
 
"Insubordination"  could mean anything from embezelment to them not wanting to make another cod game.  
Need more info. "

" @Lard said:

" @JJOR64 said:

" I'm curious why it's going to be episodic. "

More money to be made that way instead of giving people the whole game at once. "

More pesimistic views on DLC?  The first episode is going to contain eight levels, and the seven chaos emeralds, the same as the old Sonic games.  The later episodes will contain the same amount, until we end up with something the size of a full retail game (and assuming each episode is 800 points, the same price as one).  Releasing them episodically just means they can get the first part out to keep people busy, while they're working on the later parts.  It's worked great for games like Tales of Monkey Island - instead of using it as a means of "making more money", they used it to really benefit the game.  It definitely wouldn't have been the same if it were released as one big thing. "

" I say this in every thread like this- Sonic has more problems than being in 3D.  I cannot get excited about a new version of Sonic 2.  I have played that game already, and Sega has been putting out games like this nonstop if you don't exclude handhelds.  That's cool that it is back on consoles, but this is nothing new. "

Suikoden Tierkreis (or however you spell it - The DS one!)

" I'm curious why it's going to be episodic. "

" I really don't understand why file size keeps getting brought up as a limiting factor here. XBLA games have a 2 gig size limit, which has been ignored in the case of Portal: Still Alive. Then there are the Games on Demand like Burnout Paradise, Gears of War, and Assassin's Creed. PSN has never had these kinds of restrictions on files, other than the capacity of the hard drive. The fact that Shenmue came out on multiple GDROMs is not something that either PS3 or Xbox 360 can't handle. "