14 DAY TRIAL // The gaming industry doesn't have the brightest record with many politicians, as a lot of them blamed it for violent children and for corrupting the minds of young people by promoting indecent behavior. But every once in a while, local and even national authorities do realize the importance of having successful game developers on their territory.
We've already seen the state of Texas declare a day for electronic entertainment, thus honoring studios like BioWare that have their headquarters in that state. Now, the British Parliament has seen a motion praising video games developed in the UK that won awards at the BAFTA ceremonies, held recently.
The titles in question were Fable II, made by Lionhead, LittleBigPlanet, created by Media Molecule, and Race Driver: GRID, which was developed by Codemasters, all of these companies being based in the United Kingdom. They were all praised by Edward Vaizey, a representative in the House of Commons, which also took the chance to recommend the government to create more benefits for game developers in the future.
“That this House notes the importance of the video games sector to the UK economy […] congratulates the winners and nominees at this year's Bafta Video Games Awards; notes in particular the success of UK developed games, including Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet, Codemasters' Race Driver: GRID and Lionhead Studios' Fable II, all of which won awards; applauds this recognition of the continued success and significance of video games despite the complete lack of support from Government; regrets the fact that this lack of support from Government has seen the UK fall from being the third largest producer of video games in the world to the fifth largest; and urges the Government to devise a clear and supportive strategy for the UK video games sector as part of the Digital Britain review.” reads the motion.
Hopefully, more and more politicians will recognize the importance of video games and commend them and their developers for the hard work they put in in order to entertain people.