We want to see the UK-wide standard recommended retail price (RRP) of videogames software reduced to a fair and reasonable level, specifically to the region of £10-£20, in line with other forms of media like music CDs and DVD movies. The main obstacle to this is the flat-rate licence fee charged by hardware manufacturers (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) to software publishers who wish to release games for their consoles. Therefore, our primary objective is to see that flat-rate charge replaced by a fee representing a percentage of the retail price.

We're not asking the hardware manufacturers to lower the fee as such, just to make it proportionate, so that software companies can choose to sell games at lower prices. They do not currently have this choice. Currently, a game sold at £40 requires a flat-rate licence fee of around £8-£9*. Clearly, this would make selling the game at £10 or £20 economically impossible for the publisher - they're being unfairly forced to set high prices. With a percentage-of-RRP fee, the publisher could set any price they chose and let the market decide. We believe that given this choice, freed from the financial blackmail of the hardware manufacturers, it would make economic sense for publishers to choose much lower prices. Persuading them to make that choice, of course, is our secondary aim.

*Some manufacturers do offer variable flat-rate fees for lower-priced games, but the fees are disproportionately high for cheaper games, making them very unattractive for publishers.
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Yes it is. Consumers control the price of everything - if we stop buying stuff until it's cheaper, the price WILL come down, that's a cast-iron guarantee. It's simply a question of whether we want it enough.
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By organising boycotts, whereby we all refuse to buy new games during specific periods. This way, we can demonstrate our consumer power, but no-one has to actually give up buying the games they want, or disappoint their kids on Christmas Day.
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If the games firms ignore the boycotts, we'll organise longer and more frequent ones. The thing is, new videogames aren't a necessity. We can all live without buying new ones for a while - we can rent them instead, or buy second-hand ones (they don't show up in sales figures), or swap with our friends, or whatever. We can support the boycotts and still have plenty to play.
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The industry, on the other hand, is a business. A boycott lasting just one month would be disastrous for the industry's cash flow. Crucially, we can keep this up much longer than they can, and without having to make any real sacrifice at all. If we have the willpower to just buy our games a little earlier or later, they simply won't be able to ignore us, because they'll go out of business.

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You don't have to do anything. All that's required is to avoid buying new games on boycott weeks. But if you want to help more than that, there are plenty of things you can do. We've made poster and leaflet version of the campaign's main page - you can print the leaflet out and distribute it near game shops on boycott weekends, for example, or stick the poster in your window at home or at work. You can write to games companies and politely and reasonably explain why you're supporting the Fair Play campaign, or you can simply sign our online petition. You can alert your local and national media. If you have a website, you can include one of our link banners. If there's something you think we should know, you can tell us about it.

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