May 21st, 2008 by dan
Uh oh.
The BBC is reporting that there’s talks of making downloadable video and videogames need a full-on BBFC rating too.
While that’s probably actually fair enough, it raises some concerns for those of us who make downloadable content for the web.
From The BBC Website:
Age ratings for downloaded video content and video games are to be introduced in the UK.
Overseen by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the scheme will see certificates appear on websites, via set-top boxes and portable players.
Mr Johnson said the scheme, called BBFC.online, was not an attempt to censor the internet, nor to regulated online video gaming.
Mr Cooke said the BBFC continued to work with the games industry’s self-regulatory body Pegi to find solutions to classifying the burgeoning range of online gaming.
“We don’t need to set up in rivalry with Pegi online. We can work cooperatively,” he said.
Without providing specifics, Mr Johnson said the BBFC expected all the leading content providers and aggregators to sign up to the scheme in the coming weeks and months.
Quite how it’s all going to work is anyone’s guess, but paying to have your game rated seems a tad too likely, even if it is currently ‘voluntary’. It’s possibly a problem on the horizon for Indie Developers who typically can’t even afford new shoelaces.
Uh oh. Watch this space.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 4:59 am and is filed under indie games, industry.
The whole downloadable content stuff confuses me anyway. What if you (as a U.K. based business) have your game stored on U.S. servers? Who regulates that?
It all baffles me.