Eagle-eyed newspaper readers may have spotted my column in today's Technology section, which considers why Game Developer Magazine's list of the 50 Top Developers has no Europeans in the top ten. Or, indeed, the top 20. The first Euro studio is Crytek at 22, while patriotic Britons must wait til 25 in order to mutter 'Rule Britannia' with wounded pride at the appearance of Dundee developer, Realtime Worlds.

Various explanations are offered...

There's the fact that several key studios didn't have games out in 2007, when all of Game Developer Magazine's data was collected. I also flirt with the possibility that Europe just doesn't do shameless, balls-out mega blockbusters quite as well as the US, and that its development strengths lie, as in most areas of the popular arts, with the indie-minded, the muted and the idiosyncratic.

But there's another possible reason, put forward recently by Richard Wilson of UK videogame trade organisation, Tiga. He reckons that tax incentives offered in other parts of the world - most notably Canada - are providing British studios with unfair competition. Videogame publishers moving to Quebec, for example, can expect to have a percentage of their staff salaries paid by the province's government, which is why Eidos recently opened a studio in Montreal, joining EA and Ubisoft (more here).

Tiga has regularly lobbied the UK government to gain comparable tax breaks for UK devs. The trade body was pleased earlier this year when Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for the Department of Culture Media and Sport, mentioned in a report that UK games developers might soon receive similar tax breaks as the film industry.

But today's budget has yielded nothing for the game development industry and Tiga is not impressed. In a statement, Wilson complained:

The 2008 budget contained nothing to help UK games developers enhance their competitiveness in the face of intense global competition. It was particularly disappointing that no provision was made to help offset the impact of massive government subsidies to games developers in competing territories like Canada.

Games developers will also be concerned by the budget's slew of worrying economic statistics, including an increase in the overall tax burden.

It does seem as though the government is more interested in wringing its hands and worrying about the supposed effects of videogames (there are two major studies in progress, remember - more here and here), than in considering the industry as a boon to the UK economy. But is this really why there are no UK studios in that top twenty?