Trade Secrets

In January, ELSPA published its manifesto for 2007. Key items on the agenda included the need to restructure the organisation, work more closely with members and lobby the Government to realise the importance and potential of the British games industry.

Now that we're more than half way through the year, GamesIndustry.biz sat down with director general Paul Jackson to find out how far ELSPA has come in achieving those aims. Read on for his thoughts on what's happened so far and the work that still needs to be done.

Paul Jackson: We've really completed on stage one. We've reorganised internally, and I think that's put us in a really focused place to deal with the issues of the future. And we've really upped our game on the political lobbying and affecting the views of policy makers.

We're meeting very regularly with Government ministers and MPs who are both positively and negatively attitudinally aimed towards the industry. I think we're in really good shape as the industry grows in size, shape and importance over the next few years.

We've also been digging deep into our internal processes and structures, and we're getting ourselves really well positioned for the future.

That's kind of a bottomless pit... There are some areas of concern going forward. Primarily for our publisher members, there are issues around some of the predatory activities of other Governments in the way they use their financial resources to encourage industries to leave more established markets like ours and set up elsewhere.

It's very difficult, in a globalised marketplace, to know what Government can do - but we would like to see more understanding and action on the issue.

We need programs and structures that are appropriate to our market. These things are incredibly complicated so I would hate to say, 'Well, we could just duplicate that,' but I do think there's an issue there that needs to be addressed.

My personal preference would be for us to address it diplomatically. There are issues for our Government in talking to other governments about the predatory activities they seem to be carrying out.

I don't believe British industry needs special help. We're very innovative and competitive. We need the Government to protect us from uncompetitive activities... To ensure that we're not being attacked by unfair practices elsewhere.

I firmly believe that Britain can and should claim the title of the cultural home for videogames. Cultural significance is the thing that will allow people to truly understand the power and depth of what we do.

If your position is being 'just a game', it's very easy for you to be attacked from all sides. The reality of it is that we're no different from film and television; we're just as creative, we're just as culturally important, and we're incredibly important in terms of the British economy.

I've been trying to focus on a strategy of establishing Britain as that cultural home. There are three key things that are rolling that out - the first one is the Edinburgh Interactive Festival. That's fundamentally about expanding the cultural understanding of games.

Secondly we have the London Games Festival in October. It's perfectly positioned for the pre-Christmas peak. The idea behind the LGF all along has been to build the games industry's equivalent of the Cannes film festival - a place where we create a media storm.

It really enables the industry to show itself to the public; we have a lot to shout about and a lot to be proud of. Also, if we create that media storm, it allows all of our publishers to get a step-change in their own marketing.

The third thing, and the thing which absolutely cements our cultural credentials, is the BAFTA awards. They are entirely and completely focused on quality, voted on and managed from within the industry, so it's peers reviewing each other's work. We're being accepted as the important cultural media that we truly are.

BAFTA has been very good at taking on board a lot of the input we had after last year's awards. We intend to improve the awards every year, and certainly my sense is this year's awards will be bigger and better.

This is an awards ceremony about excellence, and it's peers from within the industry looking at each other's work, and that gives it a focus much more like, say, the Oscars for our industry than any other type of award.

Any truly cultural industry, the creativity within that industry will always push the boundaries; it's what creative people do. As an industry I think we've been incredibly responsible in making sure there are checks and balances in place. We support the age rating system that operates in this country.

I would say to you that I was surprised by the language the BBFC used when reporting on that matter, but we'll be talking to them about that separately. I think it's right that as a responsible industry we support the structures that are in place.

We're a publishers' trade body; we support fundamentally the right to publish. However, we also have a ratings system to which we all subscribe. We use the ratings system to defend members, their games and indeed Rockstar with the original Manhunt.

It would be foolish to now do away with our support of the ratings system when it suits us - we have to be consistent with this in order to be credible.

Having said that, leaving the decision aside, it's true to say that we believe the BBFC's detailed comments regarding Manhunt 2 were not helpful, and prompted much of the tone and content of the press coverage of the ban.

At the end of the day, we have to be responsible for what goes on in our own homes. The industry is responsible for making sure people have all the information they need to make those right choices, and the Ask About Games website is pretty key to that.

We have an onus to explain and to clarify to the public, but what goes on in homes has to be the responsibility of the family involved.

As we've started to really address the policy and lobbying issues that are the fundamental reason for trade bodies to exist, so we're starting to see all the different opportunities we face - and, frankly, responsibilities.

We need to make sure we're fully explaining the age rating system to consumers. I think we've done a great job of that, but there are fascinating things we can do going forward. For example, I'd like to work with an organisation like the Mothers' Union where they have their teenage courses for parents. We want to be helpful and supportive.

We're already seeing the impact we're having on the public policy debate is significant, but there's more work to do. We have to make sure that the games industry is established as a culturally and economically significant industry in the minds of all politicians - and we're not there yet.

There are a number of areas where we can look to expand our efforts in things like the services we provide to the industry, such as Chart-Track and those elements. So there's plenty to play for.