This Monday in the Congress of Deputies you could almost hear Mario Bros jumping. The Clara Campoamor room of the Congress hosted a day on the world of video games, the opportunities and challenges that the sector faces in Spain. Organized by the Spanish Video Game Association (Aevi), with the participation of sector actors, education experts and a wide range of parliamentarians. This is the first initiative of this type to take place in Spain and a political boost to an industry that already has 20 million players.
The event, presented by the popular content creator Cristina López Pérez, Cristininiconsisted of three different talks (on economic impact, contribution of video games to society and the role of public administrations), but the same question floated over all of them: how to maximize the positive impact that video games can have? The first of the round tables (in which representatives of large companies, such as Sony or EA, participated) elaborated on the economic impact of the most powerful cultural industry, . Alberto González Lorca, president of Aevi, pointed out the advantages that a country like Spain can have to compete in the global market (“Legal security, quality of life, a lot of educational offer and a lot of creativity”), but demanded “fiscal incentives at the level of other European countries around us.” Something that the various associations and companies in the sector have been demanding for many years.
The second talk was about the social impact of games, from studies that certify “cognitive rehabilitation, emotional support and medical detectors” that many games can provide, in the words of psychologist and researcher Elena Morán; , as Lourdes González Perea, from ONCE, said; passing through their use as tools in classrooms, which Miguel Ángel Salcedo, an expert in education and technology, defended. All of them broke down the transformative capabilities of video games, but advocated for responsibility in their use. “If we talk about child players, parents must have control tools, and we must teach them to use them,” said teacher and disseminator Laura Cuesta.
At the third, more political table, there were political representatives (Carmen Páez, Undersecretary of Culture; Mario Cortés, from the PP; Marc Lamuà, from the PSC), and different formulas were contrasted to extract the possible economic and social benefits that games can bring. to Spain. José María Moreno, general secretary of Aevi, showed the sector’s concern about Spanish overregulation: “We are worried about,” he explained, which according to him “can distance us from competitiveness with other countries in our environment.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Jordi Martí Grau, who closed the event, highlighted the “indisputable cultural value” of video games. “People are a legacy: the movies we have seen, the books we have read… and what we have played,” he said, before highlighting that the responsibility “of an industry that can intervene in the lives of 20 million people in Spain” is enormous. Martí Grau elaborated on the enormous economic dimension of a sector to which the Government “must give support” (he pointed out the 23 million euros that are given each year in direct aid), and stressed the value that video games can have at the time to educate. “It is also a focus on which to put an extra magnifying glass,” he said: “”. And taking the gauntlet dropped by Mario Cortés on an economic proposal, he opened up to tax deductions for the industry, along a similar line to what already exists in the film industry. “I think it is an interesting proposal that we can study. So that it can be seen that two supposed irreconcilable enemies [PP y PSOE] “We can reach agreements.” It is a good metaphor: the video game as a meeting place, which is ultimately one of its vocations. All that’s left is for all the parties to take control and play a game together.
