The Spanish video game calls for tax incentives, support for the sector and encourage the incorporation of young people

June 8 (Portaltic/EP) –

He video game industry has moved some of your most relevant requests in order to boost the growth of the industry in this area, demanding measures such as tax incentives, maintaining support for the sector, promoting the incorporation of young people into the labor market and designing a reinvestment scheme for multinationals in Spanish video games.

This is how the Spanish Association of Video Game and Entertainment Software Producers and Developers (DEV) during the presentation of the ninth edition of the White Paper on Spanish Video Game Development, that took place this Tuesday at the headquarters of ICEX Spain Export and Investment.

Within this framework, it has been pointed out that, although the video game sector in Spain continues to grow, “It is still far from the business figures of neighboring countries”which have indeed applied measures to promote the consolidation of the sector, as has been criticized.

Therefore, the DEV Secretary General, Antonio Fernández, has detailed the main requests that the video game sector in Spain requires to continue advancing in the industry. Among these requests, the one of implement a system of tax incentives, so that the production not only attracts large international productions, but also “facilitate the growth and consolidation” of local studios.

As they have explained, this measure is based on the modification of article 36 of the corporate tax to incorporate a new section with the objective that the video game industry has tax incentives for the production and acquisition of international projects. In fact, they have pointed out that this option has already become effective with the audiovisual industry, performing arts and live music.

In addition, Spain has pointed out that it competes with other countries that do benefit from tax incentives in this sector, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, or the United States, which distances the Spanish industry. However, as he stressed, the measure is already has the support of parliamentary groupsso that “the government that emerges from the next general elections will have the opportunity to implement it.”

Secondly, from DEV they request that the future Governance of continuity to the Support Plan for the Spanish video game development industry. As Fernández has specified, it is necessary to maintain the lines of support set in motion in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.

For this, it has influenced that the budget allocation for lines such as public aid should be increased for the promotion of the video game sector and other forms of digital creation, the Aid for business R+D+i projects applicable to the audiovisual and video game fields, and promote new public-private investment funds.

Following this line, the video game industry also requests promote the incorporation of young professionals in the sector with initiatives that facilitate the entry of junior profiles into companies and that promote equality in studies. In fact, 50 percent of the companies say they have problems covering more specialized professional profiles.

As Fernández has said, the current offer of employment and curricular internships is insufficient to cover the large number of students of degrees and postgraduate degrees in videogames. For this reason, companies need mechanisms to facilitate labor insertion. Similarly, it has been pointed out that Mechanisms are also necessary for those professionals who carry out their activity as freelancers.

Another of the aspects pointed out in this question is the need to increase the presence of women in the industry since it only reaches 24 percent of the sector.

Finally DEV has insisted that the sector needs design a reinvestment scheme for multinationals in the Spanish video game “similar to the one that has already been successfully applied in the Spanish audiovisual industry”.

This scheme is based on commit investment in national production of one small part of the turnover of companies that distribute physical and digital video games in Spain. In other words, as explained by the Secretary General, with a reinvestment of 5 percent, a stock of up to 90 million euros could be generated, which could be allocate to the production of Spanish videogames.

In addition to all this, the DEV president, Valeria Castro, who has informed that this will be the last year to present this study, has also participated in the meeting, where he has transferred his thanks for all that has been achieved in DEV during the last four years. “I feel satisfied with everything that has been achieved and everything that has been tried”, has sentenced.

Castro has stressed that Spain is about to be a “creator and developer” of video gamesTherefore, “we need to make it known and take advantage of the opportunity that we have in front of us with this sector”.

The event also had the presence and support of the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Héctor Gómez, who has pointed out that the video game industry “demonstrates the power of our country”. Thus, he has recognized the “enormous work and effort” that involves putting the video game sector in Spain in “the place it deserves”.

He has also stated that the sector “must have continuity” and continue to grow in this area as it has been doing so far. In this regard, he recalled that up to thirteen ministries are involved in this growth and that “this commitment and capacity for inter-ministerial action Not any government has it.”

On the other hand, the General Secretary for Culture and Sport, Víctor Francos, He has underlined the actions that the Government is carrying out to bet on video games. In this sense, it has valued that the videogames are one of the three axes that the Ministry is going to take to the European presidency. “One of the axes, from the outset, is sport. Of the remaining two, one is the video game. What else can we bet on?”, he added.

In fact, he has pointed out that Spain is the fifth country in the European Union in terms of video games. But, as he has sentenced, they want “to be the first”. Thus, he has highlighted that video games “they are not just leisure”, but they are a way of socializing and, therefore, “they are also a political and ideological battle.”

Finally, from the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, They have also highlighted “all the advances that have been achieved in the industry in these nine years”. But they have also pointed out that “There is still a long way to go.”

Likewise, they have detailed that it is a “strategic and key sector for the economy”. For this reason, although they have recognized that their main support is directed to the digitization areas of the sector, they have also detailed that they are aware that even more support is necessary for this sector to be strong.

The Spanish video game industry must be “a pole of attraction for talent in the audiovisual field, creating jobs and creating great economic value. We want this transformation to go further”, they have sentenced, while indicating that from the Secretariat have new proposals for the Audiovisual Hub for Europe.

The ‘White Paper on Spanish video game development 2022’ presented this Wednesday includes the consolidation of the sector, since more than 65 percent of the companies in the industry are between five and ten years old. also has billed 1,281 million in 2021 and has employed around 8,833 peopledata that corroborate that it is an “increasingly robust” industry.