Categories: Business, Science & Technology, Technology

A cozy but violent game

Taxpayers would be subsidizing violent games through the new interactive digital media tax credit

by Josh Dehaas on Thursday, September 9, 2010 4:20pm - 0 Comments

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When Ubisoft set up a studio in Toronto last July, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty stood in front of a giant flat screen TV displaying graphics from Assassin’s Creed II.

The game was developed in Canada by the type of “creative minds” Ontario needs, he said, undaunted that taxpayers would be subsidizing violent games through the new interactive digital media tax credit. But the release of another new game has prompted anger from at least one politician. In Medal of Honor, players can don the persona of a Taliban fighter and shoot American soldiers. “I find it wrong to have anyone, children in particular, playing the role of the Taliban,” said Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Although this game was developed in Los Angeles, it’s caused war veterans to question Canada’s highly subsidized video game industry. Medal of Honor was created by Electronic Arts, a company whose Canadian arm benefits from provincial subsidies like B.C.’s digital media tax credit. Provincial competition for gamer jobs started when Quebec enticed French software giant Ubisoft to Montreal in 1997. Ontario began aggressively courting the industry in 2009 with a program covering 40 per cent of labour, marketing and distribution costs. In February, B.C. increased its labour credit from 15 per cent to 17.5 per cent.

Experts say the recent controversy is unlikely to reduce sales or government support. Tirtha Dhar, a marketing expert at the University of British Columbia, points to the controversy over the game Grand Theft Auto, which was partially developed in Canada. In one version, players could have sex with hookers (a feature that was removed after complaints). “The controversy actually helped sales,” says Dhar, who notes that it was followed by the recent jumps in provincial subsidies.

Danielle Parr, the director of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, says she isn’t worried about backlash from Medal of Honor. For the government, she says, “it’s a matter of investing in an industry that’s creating high-paying jobs,” noting that violent television is supported too. Dhar agrees: “Every year some politician or some group will make a lot of noise, but it never really hurts the industry.”

Tags: Assassin's Creed II, digital media, entertainment software, tax credit, Ubisoft, video games

Iccyh

Sex with hookers was removed from GTA after a complaint? Certainly not in the last game… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_minigame_…

That's the top result for "GTA sex controversy" in Google. The sex in GTA is all implied, rather than being graphic. This allows it to keep a "mature" rating as opposed to an "adults only" rating, but having a graphic depiction of sex (like the Hot Coffee minigame) would have definitely bumped it to "adults only" which would have seen it pulled off shelves in stores, and sales would have plummeted.

The quality of technology coverage on Macleans strikes me as generally being pretty poor and this article is more of the same. The whole thing is about how violent games might be funded, implying that this is somehow a bad thing, and instead of examining what's actually been done in Canada it just goes straight to the juicy stuff that's already been in the news, like the recent bit about MacKay putting his foot in his mouth (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/MacKay misfired video game assault/3492208/story.html), or the mistake about what was or wasn't removed in GTA.

The only useful thing in the whole article is the little bit of information on how provincial governments choose to subsidize games, and even that is mostly valueless in the absence of context. How do these subsidies compare to say, subsidies for films or other media? And really, if you're so attached to making a point about violence, how many violent movies have Canadian taxpayers paid for in comparison to video games? What's the precedent?

This whole article is lazy, and I really am bugged by it. Video gaming is extremely common (http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp) and it isn't just for kids. Why is violence an issue if the consumers of it are adults? This shallow, sensationalist treatment of the whole topic is frustrating.

Ugh.
Guest

Actually, in GTA: San Andreas, if you properly went into the game files you could unlock a graphic sex game. But, you had to do things they developers never intended you to do and it was never really part of the core game.
JD2k

If they are referring to GTA4, the game was ported to PC and done by Rockstar Toronto. The idea itself in terms of game content come from their head bosses based out of either London or New York. But that shouldn't matter because of the game's content and where it was developed you should be in hoopla over. I mean if EA Canada was only developing NHL titles, the Canadian government would be ecstatic but in the end that's 1 title out of that studio per year. They wouldn't be maxing out the tatent they've hire.

What I really want to address is this whole notion of taxpayer money going to help interactive entertainment development. If the Ontario government didn't put in the tax incentives to lure Ubisoft, we would have lost out to other US States, countries overseas who are getting into the this industry. This is the stepping stone in providing Ontario a fully function gaming hub industry that likely will lead to EA, Square, THQ, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, 2K, Activison to bring more jobs to the area. We are a state where we have numerous grads looking for work overseas, lets give them the jobs here. I'm tired of the old generation that thinks lets just produce cars as the backbone of our province industry. We need to facilitate the IT sector, software engineering, e-commerce, film and video and design sector. And I really believe the gaming industry can benefit this as a whole and help Ontario in this rough economy.

Iccyh

So here I had a nice, long reply and 'cause of one naughty word, I lose the whole thing on hitting the submit button.

Summary version:
Subsidizing a large industry like auto manufacturing has knock-on benefits as not only is the manufacturer kept in business, but so are all of their suppliers and other supporting businesses. Many "knowledge economy" jobs, on the other hand, don't provide the same kind of benefits and can be easily off-shored to places like India and China.

Subsiding an industry like gaming, where workers are often treated like trash 'cause their employers know they're wanting to work their dream job and are accordingly willing to put up with poor wages and ugly conditions, may just be a complete waste of money. At the very least, I'm quite sure it isn't the solution you seem to think it is (Engineering? Sure. Video games? No.).

…and there's yet another important point totally missed by the article.

elrick74

Very true. However as a skilled trades man I can't help but fell bad for the lack of more IT jobs with good pay and working conditions, Well only one solution…..UNION!?!?!? That's why they keep making cars in Canada geek boy (JD2K)