Nicolas Marceau, the Quebec Minister of Finances announced on Monday, September 30th, improvements to the program for the production of multimedia titles. This program, created at the end of the ’90s, at a time when multimedia titles consisted mostly of CD-ROM products (like virtual tours of museums) and offline video games, was starting to be out of touch with the needs of the industry, notably in the sector of online gaming.
One of the main problems was the fact that the eligibility period was limited to three years after publication of the product. Such a limit made no sense for online games which continue to be developed for several years. For example, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Everquest celebrated its fourteenth anniversary this year. Expenses will now be eligible to the credit during the entire lifecycle of the product.
New categories of activities will also be added to the eligibility list in order to better support this sector. The conception and the development of game hosting infrastructures as well as deployment and maintenance tools for these infrastructures will now be eligible. User relations will also give access to the credit since the development of user communities, technical services, animation and user care will be considered eligible activities.
These changes will be in effect for all claims submitted after September 30th 2013.
In your opinion, will these changes help consolidate Montreal’s position as one of the capital of video games?
What do you think of the cost for our governments or for Quebec’s society in general compared to the economic windfall that such tax breaks bring?
Will small businesses have the same access to these tax credits as large multinationals?
Is the administrative red tape required to satisfy the requirements of Investissement Québec worth it for startup companies?
