If you're a video game developer, wouldn't it be great if the government were to give you a 20% tax rebate on all of the games that you produce?

That's exactly what UK developers are thinking, and they're urging their government to seriously consider implementing tax breaks to support the UK games industry. Their example is, of course, France.

More taxing details after the jump!

A report on Cyberpresse.ca reveals that government officials from Quebec has struck a deal that will require video games released in the province to be translated to French.

Apparently, English-only video games are a yearly subject of complaints in the province. The report notes that in 2005 - 2006, the Quebec Office of the French language received 262 complaints about the issue. In Quebec, only 36 percent of the most popular games were available in French. In Europe, the number of games available in the language is 80 percent.

"We didn't think it was normal that video games are available in French in Europe but not here," explained Gerald Paquette, a spokesman for Quebec Office of the French language. "Three years ago, in Quebec, it was only 10% of the games sold here that were available in French. We made some progress, but we want to get closer to that 80%."

Gamers in the province are beginning to express concern over the possible effect this new deal will have on video game release dates. What about you guys? Share your thoughts. Leave a comment below. Thanks to Laurent from the NeoGAF forums for the translation.

It seems that over a flurry of this first quarter in the year, major development studios in Canada have been announcing their efforts to expand their workforce, studio size and operations. And surprisingly, this is also in spite of a sporadic trend of company downsizing for major game companies, like Atari and Sony.

 

Up next in the list of Canada-based studios is Quebec developer Beenox, those responsible for delivering the PC versions of Shrek: The Third and Spider-Man 3 (aside from Marvel Ultimate Alliance, also for the PC). As a subsidiary of major gaming publisher Activision, Beenox has announced in a press release today that they too have plans to expand their employee base by three-fold in the next two years.

Granting that the game developer's move will open up more than 200 job positions for game-related careers, it's a lot helpful to the current government's program to expand the gaming industry the major regions of Canada, including Quebec. They claim that the new additions to their team will help Beenox to include next-generation console development in their repertoire. Robin Kaminsky, executive VP of Activision, concluded the announcement saying:

Activision is making a significant investment in Beenox and the Quebec region, which is one of the fastest growing talent pools in North America. Beenox has consistently delivered high-quality titles and we are confident in their ability to continue creating great games in the coming years.

At least they're not aiming to be the biggest studio.

 

EA Sports BIG would like to inform everyone that SSX Blur has finally shipped to North American retailers today with a price tag of of US$ 49.99. Enough said? Not really because the cool part is this: Electronic Art's celebration at the Ice Hotel.

It is located in Quebec and like its name implies, the Ice Hotel was completely made out of snow and ice. Its interior is surrounded by four-foot thick snow walls and a variety of ice-carved objects can be found there as well: ice couches, ice slides, ice shot glasses, and ice mattresses.

The event was attended by various journalists, all wearing multiple layers of clothing of course, trying to keep themselves warm. EA, on the other hand, put up a number of Wii kiosks so that guest can get their hands on the snowboarding game.

We would have loved to have been there. Oh well. Maybe in Marioland when Super Mario Galaxy finally comes out. Lastly, SSX Blur will be available in Europe on March 9.

British publisher Eidos has announced their plans to open shop, specifically a new development studio, in Montreal. This new Eidos studio will be working on unnamed and undisclosed next-gen games. The coveted role of general manager will be given to Stéphane D'Astous. The new GM's first task is to recruit a new team for the Montreal studio.

This is all part of Eidos' expansion strategy. After opening new studios in Sweden and Hungary in the past 12 months, it seems that the expansion is going as planned. The company also internal studios Crystal Dynamics, IO Interactive, Pivotal Games and Beautiful Game. According to Bill Ennis, commercial director of Eidos:

This is a really exciting time for Eidos. We are actively looking for opportunities to further our drive to become a major force in global videogames publishing. Montreal is the ideal location to open a new studio because of its thriving game development community and favourable economics.

The Quebec Government has been known to have a really supportive program for games companies. Earlier, Ubisoft was the recipient of a multi-million dollar grant to fund the expansion of its Montreal office. According to Raymond Bachand, Quebec's minister of economic development, innovation and exports:

Our talented workers, competitive operating costs and the support of our government have enabled Quebec to become the sector leader in Canada and attract industry's major players, like Eidos.

Last time, the Quebecois broadsheet La Presse reported that Ubisoft Montreal was to receive around C$ 8 million in tax credits from the Canadian government for the studio's expansion in the area. That grant has just been upped to C$ 19 million.

Now with 1,600 employees, Ubisoft Montreal is just 200 employees shy of Electronic Arts' Canada studios, the largest development studio to date. In ties with the establishment of a computer-animation studio (and all the talk about an Assassin's Creed movie), the Montreal studio is expected to increase its employee count to 3,000 (500 for the digital cinema studio) by 2013.

Yves Guillemot, president of French publisher Ubisoft, explained:

In 1997 Ubisoft made the decision to wager on Quebec's immense creative potential. Ten years later, the Montreal studio has been the driving force behind the conception and development of legendary brands, such as Prince of Persia, and the greatly anticipated Assassin's Creed. The Montreal studio was recently ranked fourth development studio in the world by Game Informer, one of the most influential magazines in the game industry. Today, we are pursuing our strategy centered on innovation by increasing investments in our creative teams based in Quebec.

With a CG-movie studio, a powerhouse development machine 3,000-strong, Quebec's generous taxes and a host of games to honor its legacy, Ubisoft Montreal can spearhead the game industry to a new-found glory.

Even though Ubisoft is already pretty rich right now, it seems that even more money is coming in for the French publisher.

According to GameSpot, today's issue of the Quebecois broadsheet La Presse reports that tomorrow, the Canadian government will announce it is giving Ubisoft's Montreal-based subsidiary C$ 8 million (around US$ 6.8 million).

The money is apparently part of an ongoing grant program where Ubisoft receives C$ 454 million (approximately US$ 383.9 million) from Ottawa to create 1,000 jobs in Quebec. La Presse says the money is to "permit the creation of a computer-animation studio in Montreal." The studio would be the first of its kind in the city's history, and would be used initially to produce short films for the general public.

Canada's labor minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn and Montreal's mayor, Gerald Tremblay, will be making the grant announcement tomorrow according to La Presse. Ubisoft chairman and CEO Yves Guillemot will be in attendance, as will Ubisoft Montreal head Yannis Mallat. Ubisoft has yet to give a statement regarding this issue, though, and according to GameSpot, the publisher's corporate PR office had not responded to requests for comment.

  

The worldwide Wii marketing campaign has begun and we are beginning to see shots of Wii advertisements in gaming and electronics stores as well as on the internet. These advertisements from Australia and Quebec may not be as interesting as the Japanese public demo tours but they're certainly nice to look at and compare. The first image is an Australian Wii pre-order advertisement in an electronics store sent in to GoNintendo by Jake. It certainly looks better than a number of Wii promotional posters that you see in North American stores which usually consist of a Wii image and the text "pre-order yours for $50".

The image you can see to the right is a little more unconventional as it is a Wii advertisement from a Wal-mart flyer in Quebec. According to the flyer the Wii and the PS3 are coming this November, but unfortunately the flyer would not tell us something we didn't already know and doesn't reveal the price of a Wii in Quebec. It's pretty interesting to see the Wii's marketing across the globe because being in quite a large town myself I haven't received one piece of mail or a flyer that even hints about the Wii or the PS3 releases in November.