European regulation and game developers
European regulation considering creative content is one of the hot topics at the moment in EU politics. Three years ago EGDF stated following about the regulation of online content. The full statement can be read from this link.
Regulation should support game developers
The regulatory context for online games from a development perspective is blurry. We have to state, that the regulatory systems are not yet prepared to respond to the new challenges. Main aspects for developers are on competition regulation to maintain competition on every level of the value chain. Unfortunately the access is often controlled by game platform owners.
In a cultural context we strongly support direct support as in the film industry (CNC, FFA etc.) and fiscal measures for game development support, as they are currently discussed in France and already set up in Canada and Korea. While these kinds of measures can not replace the private business, we believe, concerning competition regulation, games should be part of the “cultural exception”. Games are becoming more and more culture just as films and music.
Regulation should support those, who take high risks to make projects happen in a cultural and innovative environment. IP is one of the few assets developers can create a long term growth strategy on (implying high risks). Therefore regulation should not make it so easy for them to give up their IP. On the contrary it should support him by creating works of cultural value to everybody.
Labour law should respect Freelance and Independent’s flexibility. The industry needs more flexible regulation when it comes to working with them.
Important is competitiveness against peer companies in the new member states:
Competing companies in the new member states care less about licensing their production software, and can therefore offer even cheaper content than they normally could consider salary levels only. More awareness about licensed software in the new member states is required!
Network neutrality is a cultural value
Network neutrality is a high value and should be strictly established without any exceptions. This does not mean that policy should be neutral to technology in general. It has to be seen as part of the rule, that competition should be kept alive on every level of the value chain. Network neutrality is also a cultural value, as it allows in principle everybody equal access for the distribution network of the future for games.
We see big risks that Quality-of-Service will mainly be beneficial for large multinational companies, and that SMEs and customers will be the losers in the equation. A preferential distribution would probably be given to those content providers who have a strategic interest in keeping their point of sale – privileges in the digital age. For the producers this is bad news as again not the best quality or concept is decided upon, but the “preferential” distribution channel. There is a certain chance, that the Internet can support the idea of democratisation of distribution. It is not sure, if this will actually happen. QoS seen in a large scale could be a tool to de-democratise the Internet.
Regulating the Internet in the manner is like creating commercial television in the United States. In the end there will be few providers of content with creators of content fighting to be seen. Creation of such an environment would be counterproductive.
How national governments can support new business models?
One issue concerning the games industry is, that government should lower market entry barriers for content producers for Europe e.g. by making sure, that the European games industry has equal access to technology (especially in the console context), and that the access is fair and reasonable for all European companies. By accepting games as a cultural and audiovisual media, public regulation and support systems can be applied to games. Especially in the development side funding is necessary for cultural diversity.
In an networked environment the role of government as trust holder of cultural diversity becomes even more important as network effects will increase in the digital age. The role of government is then to make sure, that a strong variety of content – in our case games –
reflects the cultural values and traditions of the member states.
What should the EU do?
In general, it is necessary to pay more attention to the subject of game development and to have a positive attitude about it. There are several possibilities, which have to be taken into consideration. Regulatory measures should value the cultural, technological and economic impact of a flourishing game developer community for the whole of Europe. They should value games as a cultural and audiovisual medium in the rapidly changing information society. The definition of culture can not be made up in an ivory tower, but in a democracy it is necessary to look at the people – and they have opted for games as culture a long time ago.
Content and technology funding can help supporting the industry on the two necessary ends: IP as a result of content creation on the one side and technology on the other. It is necessary to study closely the impact and spread of (online and offline) game consoles in European households in the next 10 years. This is often neglected in our opinion.
Content funding, which can be legitimized culturally, should be given support e.g. in the context of project development (e.g. prototypes). On the other side the barriers of R&D innovation are blurring in a service driven economy. Technology funding should especially take into consideration strategies for lowering the market entrance barriers for European content producers and the little control Europeans have over console, hardware and interface technology. An important role of the EU level lies in finding interoperability standards for middleware for interactive content creation taking into consideration open source layers as well as proprietary solutions.
