How British is British Enough? Ask the Cultural Test


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How British is British Enough? Ask the Cultural Test

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If a UK video game developer wants to qualify for tax relief, it will need to create a game that passes the country?s new cultural test.

The cultural test judges games on their level of? Britishness. Games that score at least 16 points pass the test and will earn the developers the tax relief.

Points are earned for a British setting, British characters, and recording the game?s dialogue in the English language or in a recognized regional or minority language. Games that manage to promote the development and enhancement of the country will score an additional four points.

Developing the majority of a game in the UK also pulls in a few points. The more British employees that are working on the creative team, the higher the score.

If you want to get into the nitty-gritty, the full breakdown of points can be found here.

Racking up the highest score seems like a game of its own for developers to play.

Develop Online: The UK video games cultural test

What an archaic system, good to know the UK just loves to fall further into obscurity as a premier games developer nation. GT5 is made by a Japanese company but features a significant amount of international content - with a very small amount of actual Japanese content. By this system, the game isn't "Japanese" at all and so wouldn't receive a tax break - despite the fact that it's Japanese made and developed and published by 2 different Japanese companies who offer a high-calibre Japanese export.

But oh no, there's an Aston Martin and a Ferrari in there, so who gives a ****?

Just when I think my country is about to do something that benefits it, it goes and pulls something retarded like a Britishness scale for computer games.

As long as it doesn't entail the Union Jack being plastered all over game environments then it's fine by me. I'm fine with games simply having British locations and non-clich?d British characters. Britishness is not about shoving it in your face.

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