With the consultation period for the Office of Fair Trading's (OFT) draft principles for childrens appsset to run for a month and a half, one lawyer has branded the guidelines as a "good step forward", but noted some developers will need to pay more attention to them than others.

Jaclyn Wilkins of London-based international law firm Charles Russell LLP has told us that, for developers working on behalf of publishers, the responsibility for making sure the principles are met won't lie with them.

"The principles will be unlikely to directly affect developers of games who are merely creating games on behalf of games operators or publishers," said Wilkins of the guidelines.

"But, any developer wishing to self-publish and operate a game will certainly have to take note of these principles and the law."

Case by case

Noting that the final version of the principles will likely be published by the OFT in late January or early February, Wilkins said that the issue of who qualifies as a child has also been resolved, with the OFT taking the view that a child is "likely to be a person aged under 16".

"An assessment of a game's style, content and presentation will be taken into account when assessing whether it appeals to children," added Wilkins, who specialises in IT, technology and games.

"The new principles are a good step forward and make it easier to interpret and comply with consumer law will help to promote confidence with parents, which in turn will encourage a more positive perception of the sector as a whole.

"However, there is no doubt that this will create more work and compliance issues for a lot of businesses especially when there is a risk of an investigation and the issue of a fine from the OFT for breach."

Wilkins believes the principles will finally be put into force on 1 April 2014, at which point "enforcement action may be taken against those businesses in breach of consumer protection law", although critics of the OFT have claimed the guidelines simply restate the law as it already exists.