Graber, Christoph Beat --- "State Aid for Digital Games and Cultural Diversity: A Critical Reflection in the Light of EU and WTO Law" [2010] ELECD 142; in Graber, Beat Christoph; Burri-Nenova, Mira (eds), "Governance of Digital Game Environments and Cultural Diversity" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Governance of Digital Game Environments and Cultural Diversity

Editor(s): Graber, Beat Christoph; Burri-Nenova, Mira

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446830

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: State Aid for Digital Games and Cultural Diversity: A Critical Reflection in the Light of EU and WTO Law

Author(s): Graber, Christoph Beat

Number of pages: 32

Extract:

7. State aid for digital games and cultural
diversity: a critical reflection in the
light of EU and WTO law
Christoph Beat Graber*

INTRODUCTION
Digital games are fascinating and are rapidly becoming a major attraction for
a new generation of media consumers. This is a phenomenon that public
service broadcasters have also noticed. In order to tie young audiences to their
programmes they are expanding into the world of interactive online games. An
example is Ski Challenge 08, an interactive online game which allows the
player to virtually hit the slopes of the five most spectacular downhill races of
the Ski World Cup.1 The game was offered by SRG and ORF, i.e. the Swiss
and the Austrian public service broadcasters. It was presented by the broad-
casters and their sponsors on independent webpages,2 but the broadcasters
placed advertisements for the game in their official webpages.3 For the 2008

* The author would like to thank Mira Burri-Nenova, Aphra Kerr and Sacha
Wunsch-Vincent for comments on an earlier draft of this chapter, Aleksandar Rusev
and Thomas Steiner for research assistance and Susan Kaplan for editorial assistance.
The support of the Ecoscientia Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.
1 See `1000 Stürze im fiesen Brüggli-S', Tages-Anzeiger, 9 January 2008.
2 Gamers in Switzerland and Austria registered with their national broadcaster
in order to be allowed to participate online in a multiplayer competition on a national
and international level. Lists on the broadcaster's webpages showed ...