Video Games Tax Relief has triggered £2.4bn in UK economic growth since 2014
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The UK's Video Games Tax Relief has driven an estimated £2.4 billion in additional economic growth since it was first introduced in 2014.
That's according to analysis by Games Investor Consulting, shared with GamesIndustry.biz, that also shows the Treasury has issued over £1.1 billion to UK companies between 2014 and 2022.
According to the company's estimates, the UK games development sector has invested £1.2 billion in over 15,000 new creative roles since VGTR was first announced in 2012.
Overall, VGTR has helped games companies generate and protect close to 18,000 development jobs, as well as another 32,000 jobs elsewhere in the supply chain.
This represents over £3 billion in new GDP contributions from games since 2012.
GIC also offered insight into how the development landscape has grown in the years since the tax incentive was announced.
In 2011, following "four straight years of headcount decline" and over 200 company closures, there were only 330 games development studios in the UK, with a total workforce of less than 9,000 people.
Major international games companies had been shutting down the UK studios and pouring investment into other markets such as Canada, the US and France. Between 2008 and 2001, the average change in headcount was a decline of 3.5% per year.
"If that decline had continued, it is likely that the UK games development sector would be a fraction of today’s, under pressure from increasing state subsidies in Germany, Australia, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia, US and Canada amongst others," Games Investor Consulting wrote in its analysis.
Between 2012 and 2014, the two years between VGTR's announcement
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