TIGA carries on the tax fight

UK developer trade body TIGA is refusing to give up hope of seeing tax breaks on offer to games businesses in the country, and met with a group of MPs today to carry on the lobbying.

CEO Richard Wilson met with Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster - previously the party's spokesperson for Culture, Media and Sport in the last Parliament - along with Labour MP Jim McGovern and SNP MP Stewart Hosie.

An unnamed representative of Activision was also in on the meeting, as the trade body attempts to push through measures announced in the pre-election Budget by Alastair Darling that would see a "film-style" tax break applied to games developers.

We've heard from political insiders in the past couple of weeks that as the Conservative-led coalition tries to send a strong message to the public on the extent of the UK's financial woes, that new tax breaks don't stand a chance of seeing the light of day - comments which seem to back up hazy prating from Jeremy Hunt and Ed Vaizey earlier this week.

Of course, few people thought Wilson had any chance of smuggling videogames onto the agenda in Darling's last Budget either - quite the achievement in fact - so until the ink is dry on new Chancellor Osbourne's June 22 update, we'll just have to wait and see.