Fla. Lawmakers Worry About Tax Breaks for Video Game Companies

Not because they don't need them, but because they're taking them away from film and television companies (who also don't need them).

Some Florida lawmakers want to place new limits on the state's entertainment-industry incentive program, concerned that too many of the tax breaks are being gobbled up by video-game giant Electronic Arts Inc.

"To have such a concentration of it going to games — I mean, people sitting at computer terminals — I'm not sure most of us really think that's film," said state Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater. "Film is movies. … People have to hire a lot of folks and they have meals and have to stay in a hotel room."

"I think we ought to be focused on those kinds of things [rather] than games," he added.

Latvala is not alone. During a meeting Thursday in Tallahassee, members of the Florida Senate's Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development grilled state officials about whether video-game projects deserve public subsidies over television and feature-film productions.