UKIE: Crowd-funding should be permitted in UK

British industry trade body UKIE has published guidelines on how it believes crowd-funding can be permitted in the UK to benefit video game developers. Currently, regulations are in place that limit crowd-funding schemes in the UK in a bid to protect consumers from fraudulent investment models. However, UKIE's new report states that "minimal changes" can be made to legislation to make crowd-funding a viable route for developers. In particular, the organization pointed out Double Fine's recent Kickstarter project as showing the "huge potential of crowd-funding to benefit games and interactive entertainment businesses." The company noted that the video games industry is currently going through many aspects of change, including the various methods of distribution and the shifting financial models that are occurring, and that crowd-funding would provide UK developers with a new channel for finance. UKIE has now posted its crowd-funding report [PDF], as it said it would earlier this month, calling for "crowd-funding to be permitted generally." It says that this would allow UK developers to utilize the fast-moving investment model while also maintaining "an appropriate level of protection" for investors. There should be no limit to how much money can be raised for a project, says the organization; however, there should be an investment limit per person per project, to reduce the possibility of an individual putting too much investment towards a project that fails. UKIE chief executive Jo Twist explained, "We need the UK to be able to take full advantage of crowd-funding to allow video games businesses, community projects and SMEs from all sectors to raise much needed investment."