In a move that seems like a breath of fresh air within the gaming industry in general, the French Ministry of Culture has just recently announced that their government shall be offering tax credits to local game companies.

As part of the effort to encourage local developers, French Parliament has approved the proposal to offer the mentioned tax credits to "producers of video games 'with a cultural dimension.'"

With this benefit in place, a company's production costs may be reduced by up to 20% a year, with a maximum of up to €3M (about US$ 3.91M).

In a statement that the Ministry of Culture has released, they have noted that this move was prompted by the fact that they have recognized the increasing cultural significance of video games, and that they are hoping that the implementation of these tax credits would keep video game production within France, and maybe eliminate the need to outsource in other countries.

The statement also mentioned that this movement "recognizes the cultural character of the video game, which involves several branches of artistic talent: writers, directors, graphic artists, musical and sound creators."

In the meantime, the European Commission is already examining the proposed measure, which is expected to be finalized within the next few weeks.

On a side note, we can't help but wonder about two things: did the self-appointed Prime Minister of video games, Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres have a hand in all of this? And does this spell more rabbids (Rabbids: published by Ubisoft: based in France) for the rest of the world? Hmmm...