France Declares Games an Art Form, Roger Ebert Eats His Own Hat

Over at Gamasutra today, a feature story ran on the French Governments decision to support the videogame industry there with essentially a 20% tax break, given their business adheres to certain guidelines. These criteria can mean anything from, "obligatory narration driven, artistic expenses..." to , "...violence that could mentally, morally or physically hurt end users."

Who decides which violence (videogame violence for instance?) is going to be deemed as able to "mentally" and "morally" hurt end users and which isn't? Who watches the Watchmen?! Let's just hope the French Government continues its progressive stance with regards to game developers.

The point of the feature, however, was to point out that the European Commission only doles out this tax break normally to, "traditional" forms of the arts. Now, for all economic and legal purposes, Europe officially considers videogames an art. I'm not sold still - - how 'bout you?