The Ex-EA and 3DO head honcho is heading to the UK, and isn’t that happy with the development environment in the US.
Trip Hawkins has done a little bit of everything in his career (although, as the above video shows, he probably hasn’t tripped on LSD), and his latest move will see him relocate to the UK. GamesIndustry International reports on the move, which will see Hawkins set up a studio in the UK with Ben Geliher, a lead designer on the Moshi Monsters games. Before you start thinking “Madden competitor” (Hawkins is a noted NFL fanatic), the focus of the studio will apparently be on educational games.
What’s interesting are the comments that are attributed to Hawkins in the article as to why he chose the UK.
“If anything I’m disinclined to ramp up on the San Francisco area because it’s so expensive and there’s very high turnover with people switching companies. The culture and the lifestyle there is a little bit daunting. In the past there were countries like Ireland or Canada that we particularly attractive to game development because of government practices and tax credits and so on, but the European Union has done more to standardise that and benefits are becoming available in the UK.”
It’s an interesting (but not entirely unusual) position to take, and one that should act as a bit of an alarm bell for what’s left of the Australian development scene; if the government backing is there, it becomes attractive to house studios anywhere in the world. Or in other words, Trip, we’ve got better weather than the UK…
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