Loot Boxes in Video Games Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Winston
Main Page: Lord Winston (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Winston's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberMy noble friend is right to point to the huge success of the UK consumer games market. It is currently valued at more than £7 billion, which is more than double its size in 2013—during my noble friend’s heyday as the Minister responsible for it. The industry employs 27,000 people across the country, with nearly 80% of those people based outside London; there are video games clusters in Dundee, Sheffield, Manchester, Guildford and Royal Leamington Spa. The growth has of course been accelerated by generous tax reliefs, including those on which my noble friend worked in government. We are very proud of the impact that it has on our wider creative industries.
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on his careful Answer to this Question. Is it not a fact that this research has been done at Loughborough University with, I think, only 42 families participating, with children from five to 17? We know from other studies on computer games in general that long-term harm is not clearly established with most of these games. It may of course be different with loot boxes, but I rather think that it is important to continue research before one comes to legislation.
I thank the noble Lord for those comments. As I said in both my original and subsequent replies to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, we are working closely with academics to support independent scrutiny of the industry-led measures that are being taken, and we want to see how those work and bed in. We have developed and published a research framework so that there can be independent and rigorous analysis to give us the evidence that we need to inform policy-making.