From the 1 April 2014, all game developers, digital publishers and platform holders that make games available to UK consumers will need to comply with the Office of Fair Trading's (OFT) final set of industry-wide principles for online and app-based games.
The principles resulted from an investigation by the OFT back in 2013 into the ways in which on-line and app-based games encourage children and other users to make purchases, with the investigation being concerned with industry-wide practices that are potentially misleading, commercially aggressive or otherwise unfair. The OFT has subsequently addressed this issue with a set of eight principles, providing guidance on what the industry might do to avoid being the subject of targeted enforcement action.
Stevens & Bolton’s TMT team has produced a guide to enable developers, publishers and platform holders to comply with the industry-wide principles for online and app-based games.
To request a copy of this guide, please contact Tom Lingard on tom.lingard@stevens-bolton.com or telephone 01483 406988.
Tom Lingard