Defender of the Realms

There's more than there was a few years ago, but the problem is, parents read the about children getting into bad situations and think: "Well, it won't happen to my child," that it's one of those things that happens to 'other people.'

In fact, it is happening out there, and nine times out of ten parents know nothing about it. Children keep secrets. They don't always tell their parents - even if they're in real trouble online. That means we need to educate the parents, the kids, everybody.

We're always on the lookout for ways to publicise the dangers and add our voice to government policy to tighten up regulation to keep children safe. Crisp is a member, along with Microsoft, BskyB and Sony, of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS), the body charged with driv¬ing forward recommendations made in the Safer Children in the Digital World government report - and we work closely with public and private organisations to raise the profile of internet safety.

As far as we're concerned, there can never be too much publicity about the dangers to children online. But we also need to keep a balance. As I said earlier, most children will never have a problem. But we need to make sure people are risk aware and companies have the best possible systems to cope with the threats.

Well, more and more resources for parents are available today. At Crisp, we are exploring the possibility of setting up a consulting service for public organizations and private companies. In addition, we have our own programme - "Crisp Certified" - that helps parents to identify virtual communities that are taking action to enforce strict codes of conduct by using our technology. This programme means that parents do have a way to judge which sites to let their children join.

Yes, but it's not easy for parents. Children don't always talk to their parents openly about what they're up to online and I think we have to be realistic about this. We can't stop kids from wanting to keep some things hidden from their parents. So the industry needs to act together. We all need to take responsibility for helping solve the problem, not just parents.

Fortunately, the industry is becoming increasing aware of the need to be vigilant, to invest in high quality products to keep children safe.

Yes, absolutely. MMOs are the future of online entertainment, there's no doubt about that. The technology is there and people want to play the games. MMOs for children are just starting to evolve and we think Free Realms is going to be huge. It's educational, fun and represents the first big breakthrough for children's virtual worlds.

We're going to see an explosion of MMOs and virtual worlds that whole families play together. It's easy to pigeonhole a game as something just for kids. But we've seen that parents are just as keen on kids' games in the same way that millions of adults go to see films made for kids.

Today's parents are more computer-savvy; they grew up playing console and PC games - so why wouldn't they want to play a new family MMO alongside their children? The graphics and technology will be highly sophisticated and these games will work on different levels, appealing to whole generations in one family.

It's just natural progression and the smart games companies know this. That's why we need to work harder to ensure our systems can evolve and scale up to cope with the surge - and continue to keep everyone safe.