I learnt today that French representatives voted 3 days ago an amendment about giving a tax break to French videogame industry. [URL=http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070201/175446.shtml]Techdirt.com has more about it.[/URL]
This was a last minute amendment in the context of a law about tomorrow's television, discussed february 11th. The amendment was proposed by conservative rep. Patrick Ollier with the complicity of Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, who had already tried to give this tax break to game industry. This amendment is inspired by Canadian tax break.
Now, the problem is that European Commission didn't approve this amendment yet. The Commission will normally give its answer between may and june, but it already said that tax break could be allowed to be given [I]on condition that it is for the purpose of cultural products[/I]. Which means no tax break will be given on "violent games". For example, according to what I've read [URL=http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/imprimer/0,50000200,39366739,00.htm]on a French website[/URL], a product like [I]WOW : Burning crusade[/I] wouldn't receive a tax break. Such a limitation infuriates French game developpers.
[B]Edit :[/B] This story has been covered by [URL=http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2007-02-01T185450Z_01_L0151931_RTRUKOC_0_US-FRANCE-VIDEO.xml]Reuters[/URL]