Tiga welcomes EU tax ruling

UK developer body Tiga has released a statement welcoming today's announcement that the EU has approved the French government's application to apply tax breaks to the videogames industry.

The decision means that the French government will now be able to offer cash rebates of up to 20 per cent of a game's development cost, providing it fulfils certain criteria on cultural significance.

Tiga CEO and chair Fred Hasson told GamesIndustry that the result is great news for the industry, and that he was impressed with the attitude of the French government in the matter.

"We and the EGDF have been quietly confident because we've been talking to the European Commission and one of our members is the French organisation APOM - and they're very close to the French government," he said.

"The French government has been unbelievable in its support for the videogames industry. I've met some of the people that work for the Ministry of Culture for example, and their support has been completely and utterly unfailing."

Hasson pointed out that the system is nothing new, and is heavily based on the existing concessions available to the film industry.

"All the EU has done is accepted that videogames in their own right are a cultural form and they've applied their systems for financing film productions to videogames," he said.

"In fact, during the research that the Commission did, the British model for supporting film was very much one of the models they studied for looking at what sort of support might be applied to the games industry."

The move paves the way for other governments within the EU to offer similar incentives to videogame developers in their countries, and it is hoped that it will stem the flow of studios and expertise to Canada.