Ubisoft would hire 1,000 UK developers - but only if there was a tax break


Gareth Edmondson says Ubisoft would match investment in other territories, but only if Government stepped up
Ubisoft Reflections studio head Gareth Edmondson has told Develop that Ubisoft would be happy to add an extra 1,000 members to its team in the North of England – echoing its activity in Montreal, Canada – if only the Government would support the UK games industry.

Edmondson, who is part of the Games Up campaign group lobbying for a tax break for games developers, told us: "Whenever I meet Lord Digby Jones, my line is ˜would you like to create 1,000 jobs in Newcastle?' We'd love to be huge, but we've got a very limited number of vacancies, because other Ubisoft centres are more cost effective."

Ubisoft's Montreal base is one of the biggest single game development sites in the world, with over 1,600 developers at its large Quebec office. The Canadian team has plans in place to increase its staff headcount to 3,000 by 2013.

Ubisoft Montreal also recently expanded in the area by acquiring 80 person-strong visual effects house Hybride, behind films such as 300 and Sin City, as it looks to bring film effects knowledge into its game teams and also expand its game properties into the film and TV space.

Newcastle-based Reflections, meanwhile, has 110 staff all currently hard at work on the next Driver game.

"We have to outsource quite a lot of art, but we keep the core – the technology, the design, the innovation – in-house," added Edmondson

"We're safe as we are, but we'd love to have another 1,000 staff, to expand like Ubisoft Montreal. I mean, I love making games – at the moment, we have the resources to be working on one or two titles at a time, but I'd love to be able to work on more."

Much of sister studio Montreal's expansion comes with support from local government: Ubisoft works closely with Quebec authorities to achieve its ambitious plans for the studio. Government support has also been the catalyst behind the further development of Ubisoft's Casablanca studio in North Africa, which is planning for another 150 staff in the coming years, and its establishment of a new studio in Singapore, which aims to host 300 people.

Similarly, many of Ubisoft's recent studio openings have been in low-cost areas, where the company can simultaneously develop assets for less money as well as tap into new local talent pools. Within the past year, it's opened a studio in Sao Paulo, Brazil, hoped to be at 200 staff within the next four years; one in Kiev, Ukraine, started with 12 people and aiming to ramp up to 50 within its first year; and another in Chengdu, China, looking to have 200 people within twelve months.

Answering the often-heard argument against tax breaks, Edmonson added: "It's easy to pick a successful game like Assassin's Creed and say that, in hindsight, it would have done fine without tax credits, but would it have even been made without those tax breaks? While it was hugely successful, it needed to be – it was a massive project, with a massive budget."

While Montreal-style growth would in the North East of England would be ideal, Edmonson admits that the 110-man strong Reflections isn't going to falter without Government support – but it might not reach its full potential: "I don't think that the UK games industry is going to collapse without tax breaks, but it certainly isn't going to be as good as it could be. I'm really passionate about creating jobs up here in the North East.

"Games Up is about the opportunity that there ought to be for huge expansion in the UK, but it's not going to happen without Government support. That's why Ubisoft is supporting the initiative."

Source

I am very dissapointed about the news, But after the news, I will try and point this out to the british government and show them that 1000 jobs would be available if they would lower the taxes!


and this will just show if its true that the british government want to get more people into work.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: smiler_16,

I don't understand why the british government is so careless about the video game industry. Almost every other country in Europe is willing to offer games and to expand on the amount of staff and game developers, so why is the british government thinking differently? As I remember correctly, some of this industry's greatest people, who helped build it together and innovated its many aspects, live over there, right now.

Interesting news, and its always good to hear of proof of Drivers existence. Thats good enough news in itself.

@Future


The british taxes have nothing to do with the british government hating the gaming industry!

Ubis problem is that the general taxes are so high!

No sign of progress on Driver 4, but at least it shows Reflections is working on something.

Its a bit worrying to hear him say without a much bigger staff, it may not reach its full potential.

But when I think about it, I haven't played many games that I would say have reached their full potential, especially with how complex newer games keep getting, its gonna be hard to get close to unlocking all its potential

its dissapointing that they can't aquire more staff,

but that doesn't mean that they can't hit its full potential... that just depends on the performance from the staff... having too many staff around would just cause too much chaos, so I'm not too concerned about this issue.

Well they wouldn't all be working on the same game, development would move faster and also, in between Driver games we could have 1 or 2 different titles being released by Reflections.

It would give them a chance to explore other genres if they wanted to.

I'd hate to say it, but Reflections asking for 1000 employees and tax breaks is a bit much considering their recent track record. But, if Driver 4 is a big success, they may get their wish, to an extent. Just need to prove they can make fun, polished games again, now that they're not under the evil regime of Atari.

if you look for the studio on Google earth. you'll see that its a very small place that they work in...

I personally think that we should wait until Driver 4 is released and let UBI see how successful it can be, because otherwise, if they got 1000 new employees then they would have to move to a new studio, and then we would have to wait longer for D4..

and in this day in age, games are constantly getting better and if they release it 6 months late then it would just be a game full of old news



and I personally dont want that to happen because I'm hoping that the next Driver will become the game it was before again! - and I think that this is its last chance :S

While it seems like bad news for Ubisoft Reflections, I think that Ubisoft will do all that it can to help out the developer because it payed a lot to get it and have it release the Driver franchise, which it can then sell many copies of, so this will very likely not be the end for Ubisoft Reflections. The biggest disappointment would probably have to be if we see one of its Driver titles staying in development hell. That is practically the worst thing that could ever happen with a game developer's own game.