Updating news stories and, of course, the PS2

We’re going to take a moment to look back and update some of the reports from the last few weeks so first we have…

Interzone Futebol, the Perth Office and Big Collision Games

On 22nd February we reported on events at Interzone’s Perth Office with staff locked out with payments not having been made.

Although we haven’t had much news from the Australian side of things The Irish Times, Gordon Smith recently wrote that Big Collision Games, the company now advertising the Futebol project, had signed a contract to take space in the Digital Hub in December, two months before the closure of the Perth Office.

Gordon’s article can be found here and of greatest interest to those who have been following the story is Marty Brickey’s definition of Big Collision Games as a separate entity of games publisher, a different business model to games development.

Ten years older

You may not have realised it, but it's been a full decade since the release of SONY's Games Industry altering console the Playstation 2. Here we sit 10 years down the line and it's hard to remember the days before the PS2 arrived on the scene and became the must have under-set box for an entire generation.

Casting our minds back to the heady days of 2000, it's bizarre to think that before that games consoles were mainly the purview of nerdy kids with too much pocket-money.

We thought we'd remind you of the brilliant advertising campaign that whet our appetite for the now legendary console still in use today.

Instead of the revolutionary yet understandable brilliance of the PS1 campaign with gems like Double Life, and following in the path cut by the brilliant Glaswegian Alien Girl monologue in Mental Wealth; the PS2 was treated to a more revolutionary and abstract series of adverts focusing on the emotional and trancendental experience of gaming.  They even hired auteur filmmaker David Lynch to create a most bizarre series of strange visions, as well as hiring other directors to create various other oddities.  The sum and effect of which has yet to be bettered in any similar campaign.

Dealing with tax breaks

Following our editorial, The violence inherent in the system, we were contacted by Joe Fitzpatrick MSP for Dundee West.  Our interview with Joe is coming up on the 18th March but in the meantime we’d like you to see the motion he lodged with the Scottish Parliament a good statement of support for the UK industry as a whole:

Short Title: Games Tax Relief Date of Lodging: 1 March 2010

S3M-05843 Joe FitzPatrick (Dundee West) (SNP): That the Parliament congratulates the video games industry on its contribution to the country’s economy; notes that the video games industry contributes over £1 billion annually to the United Kingdom’s gross domestic product, generates £400 million for the Exchequer in tax revenues and supports 28,000 jobs, over a tenth of which are in the Dundee area; recognises the threat to the UK games industry that comes from its main competitors, including the United States of America, Canada and South Korea, who all offer major tax breaks at either national or regional level for game production or other substantial government financial support; welcomes the research by TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry, into tax relief, which shows that a tax break would create or save 3,550 graduate-level jobs or the vocational equivalent and increase and protect £415 million in new and saved tax receipts over five years, and calls on the Scottish Government to lobby the UK Government to implement such a tax break for game production in this years budget.

Editorial was brought to you by Graeme Strachan and Phil Harris

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