France strengthens games tax breaks to stem brain drain

France has moved to strengthen tax breaks for developers in an effort to halt an industry brain drain that has seen the country lose 50 per cent of its games workforce.

As reported by Tax News, France’s National Assembly has backed an increase to the timespan in which studios can claim back eligible expenses from 36 months to 72 months. Such an increase is designed to take into account longer development cycles.

A previous stipulation that development costs must be over €10 million to qualify for that extension has also been removed.

Another key change to the country’s games tax credit is that it will now cover adult titles rated as PEGI 18+.

The minimum budget is also set to be lowered from €150,000 to €100,000 to enable more developers to claim for tax relief.

The country’s games tax breaks have been taken advantage of by studio’s such as Quantic Dream, which was able to take advantage of games and R&D tax breaks at up to 40 per cent to cut costs on its recently released PS3 title Beyond: Two Souls.