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[Visualante2]

Develop has the story

Focus is on mobile gaming, headed up by UK games industry veteran Martyn Brown

Comes as a result of the Treasury offering tax breaks for development and animation in the UK in the 2012 budget earlier this year.

The publishing giant pulled away from UK games development in January 2011 when closing down Liverpool studio Bizarre Creations. About 200 game jobs were affected. Activision still owns another British studio – FreeStyleGames in Leamington Spa – though in a reduced capacity.
Activision' withdrawal from UK games development came just six months after the Coalition government blocked Labour plans to introduce games tax breaks in the UK.
Weeks before Bizarre Creation’s closure in 2010, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick branded the tax break snub “a terrible mistake”.
Develop understands that Activision aggressively lobbied for games development tax breaks earlier this year – months before the Treasury reversed its position and approved the policy – and had indicated to civil servants that it wanted to hire British talent.
Activision’s new studio will not likely be formally revealed for a number of months.

 

[jiggles]

This just makes Bizarre's closure sting all the more.

 

[Carl]

Hooray for finally getting tax breaks. Great to see this. The dwindling British development scene was terrible to see.