European Games Developer Federation chair Guillaume de Fondaumiere has issued a warning to countries looking to implement ‘cultural tests’ for tax credits: move with the times or risk withholding the lifeline until it’s too late.

“The cultural test is a problem,” he told GamesIndustry.biz. “It"s definitely a problem, and when I negotiated both with the French government and the European Commission I had to give in on a number of criteria - because state aids are only allowed under EU law under the famous cultural exception.”

His comments come weeks after the publishing of the UK government’s Digital Britain report, which recommends a similar system of credits to those enjoyed by French developers and the UK film industry. The amounts are relatively small (EUR15million for French games in 2008 next to EUR700million for French film), but it’s hoped a recognition of game production outsourcing costs will adjust them.

But there’s another catch: in the UK proposals, games must be “culturally British” to qualify. The criteria in France are similar, but arguably more lenient. Even those, said De Fondaumiere, are still problematic. “We now have a test that allows approximately 40 per cent of games produced in France to benefit from tax breaks. But I"m still not satisfied. We now have to go back to the EU and fight this battle again, on the grounds that many things have changed - obviously banks, the automotive industries getting funding... obviously there are new criteria.

“To me, all games are cultural. Videogames aren"t just a form of entertainment, but a true form of cultural expression, and I think that in twenty years" time this will be a given. No one will dispute that any more. So we"ve got a rocky twenty years in front of us, and we have to make sure this recognition doesn"t happen when we no longer have an industry in Europe.”