Digital Britain for the Video Games Industry: new Ratings System unveiled

Valerie | 17 Jun 2009, 10:17


Photo: Getty

Whilst focusing on the implications for the less-interactive media, the Digital Britain report also offered some positive news for the UK games industry.

Unveiled by new Creative Industries Minister Siôn Simon yesterday as part of the Digital Britain report, the Government announced its overhaul of the video games classification rules which will see the adoption of the PEGI (Pan European Game Information) system, a self-regulatory system currently used in most European countries in which publishers themselves recommend an age rating for games. This will replace the BBFC games ratings as the sole method of classifying video games in the UK and will make selling a video game rated 12 or over to an underage person illegal for the first time.

The decision was welcomed by video games trade body ELSPA and games publishers including Nintendo, Ubisoft UK and Sega Europe as “absolutely the right decision for child safety”.

The Digital Britain report also acknowledged the upward trajectory predicted for the UK video games industry and featured a pledge by the Government to work with the video games industry to collect and review the “evidence” for tax breaks that would help support and sustain the creation of “culturally British” video games in the UK.

An article in the Independent earlier this week indicated that many MPs were ‘receptive’ to tax breaks for video games developers, with John Whittingdale, chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport urging fellow MPs from all parties to act fast in offering greater incentives to British developers.

Launching the Play Together initiative with Tiga earlier this week, which will focus on “fostering innovation, collaboration and communication between UK video game companies and with other creative industries such as music and film, Jon Kingsbury, creative programme director at NESTA said:

“We believe the UK video game industry is one of the shining lights of digital Britain. We want to foster this creativity and help the industry become even more successful in the future. What is clear is that innovation in all aspects of the business process is essential if Britain’s creative industries are going to remain competitive in the global market.”

Enabling collaboration between the Creative Industries is a key priority for c&binet and the forum in October will be dedicated to bringing together creative business leaders to share best practice and address shared challenges collectively.