PEGI becomes UK standard for games Comments by Matt Martin

I wanna know where we stand on the pre-owned market..
Currently stores cannot take in/sell PEGI versions of games with both ratings.

Also...the government paid so much money for research into changing the BBFC's logos and policies to incorporate the PEGI-style system of rating at the taxpayers expense...then decide to go for the inferior PEGI system anyway!

PEGI is a sack of shit.

And the BBFC are great, and far more liberal than people think.

That is all.

so I take the new system will be...robust? lol.

only thing im bothered about - i prefer the BBFC label things.

my game collection must be kept neat!

This may sound like a stupid question, but how on earth does someone actually go about rating a game?

Hypothetical situation - there's a nice cutesy game out there which takes 20 hours to complete (Mario Galaxy for arguments sake). That's a loooong looong time for someone to play through to check Mario doesn't say fuck shit or bugger. Especially if that's an Easter Egg (like the GTA blowjob).

"This may sound like a stupid question, but how on earth does someone actually go about rating a game?"

Send it to the board you want to rate it [up until now the BBFC or PEGI]. They'll have all files in the commercially-released game made available to them and judge what rating it should be given based on criteria for certain material - i.e. drugs references, adult content [and whether it's explicit or not], what degree of profanity there is or isn't in the game, blood, gore and dismemberment, and horror content.

They may or may not play through the game itself, often they will just play samples of the game, listen to some of the game's conversations, read the game's text files [or a portion of them] and have things pointed out to them by developers to make the process a lot more streamlined given the huge nature of some games. For example, playing through all of Fallout 3 would be stupid and time-consuming. Since heavy fines can be incurred for lying to the BBFC, there is a strong incentive to tell the truth.

Generally developers will earmark content that is certain/extremely likely to garner a higher rating first, so that a rating can be arrived at lot faster - you hardly need to rate everything in the game if just a few pieces of content are sufficient to get a 15 or 18 rating.

Has a game ever had the "discrimination" logo?

And whilst we're at it, I find the discrimination logo (two white figures looming over a small black figure) discriminatory. Can the logo be changed according to the particular discrimination at work? For example to two black dudes with afros and too much jewelry looming over a badly dressed skinny white teenager for Fiddy Cent's next. A gorgeous skinny woman with huge norks looming over a couple of fat mingers for Tomb Raider? Or a giant douche looming over innocent internet users, for Farticus' next rant.

Even PEGI themselves say that only 50% of consumers recognize the content descriptors: http://www.pegi.info/en/index/id/37/

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Why does consistency with the EU matter, I don't recall the last time I popped over to France to visit my local Le Game. The BBFC rating system is well known and has a high profile. PEGI is almost invisible as far as the general public are concerned. I'm not a fan of the BBFC by any stretch of the imagination but this is the wrong decision.

It is actually better for us as gamers for PEGI to rate our games, most of Europe use PEGI and this makes getting games published far easier.

USK who rate games in Germany really slow down getting ratings for launch, if BBFC took over the rights in the UK, it would be the same.

This is good news.

Every other country has their own film ratings board that take local cultural sensibilities into account, so why do we want a pan european games option?

I'd much rather having a rating that reflects the country instead of a game being slapped with an 18 based on the fact that someone in Europe finds it more offensive than someone, in say, the UK. I don't actively care who rates what, but I do think the PEGI system needs a big overhaul.

To all those who complained when the BBFC made a ruling I can only say you should have taken note when people said "Be careful what you wish for".

PEGI is a whole lot of hurt and seems to be different from country to country. A 12 in the USA isn't necessarily a 12 over here, under the PEGI system. Only now it's also a legally enforcable rating system, where as the BBFC only enforced 18 certificates. Under the new system, if you look under 12 and are buying a 12 rated game, you need ID.

I haven't laughed so hard in ages. Suddenly the sensible BBFC doesn't seem so bad does it.

"A 12 in the USA isn't necessarily a 12 over here, under the PEGI system"

Erm, that is because PEGI (Pan European Game Information) isn't used in the US. They use ESRB. Age ratings are the same across Europe (apart from Germany), it is better for us to use PEGI.

BBFC or GTFO.

Er... surely it was already illegal to sell a game rated 12 or over to a minor?

Erm, way to be completely stupid, Eurogamer readers. The point is that PEGI are now an independent, specialised, legally enforced ratings body. This is great news for the industry as it will reduce the sale of inappropriate games sold to minors, and will help responsible parents make an informed choice about which games to let their children play.

The point of this news is NOT that the current PEGI logo looks a bit crap, or that parents might not understand it. Now that it is legally binding and that this will likely make the mainstream news, parents will be more aware of its meaning and will be forced to look out for it when they buy the game.

Sure, irresponsible parents will buy 18 rated games for their 6 year olds, but you can't cater for those people anyway.

The point is also not that the PEGI rating system are inaccurate. As it says in the article, they will try and ensure that the ratings board are robust, fair and respectable.

I'm suprised most of the comments here were so stupid. Usually when a good, serious piece of news appears on Eurogamer, the intellectuals come out to debate it sensibly.

@Chufty: Think of it this way, in the end, it doesn't matter which body does the certification as parents will ignore them regardless and buy inappropriate material for minors regardless of who says what on the box.

Having said that, the BBFC is considered a little more authorative due to the fact that they rate other forms of entertainment as well, which oddly, are not as widely ignored. People also seem to agree that their certifications are, on the whole, more accurate in determining the rating due to the content due to better defined guidelines.

If you want robust, fair and respectable out of the box, I think the BBFC would have been the better choice. PEGI are more detailed and flexible, but you need people to actually read the boxes for that to matter!

This is great news for the industry as it will reduce the sale of inappropriate games sold to minors, and will help responsible parents make an informed choice about which games to let their children play.

Nope dont see that at all. If pegi wrongly rate games (BBFC was generally very good)... then parents and children will have no idea what is good or bad. I refer you to the Terminator game as a prime example of very poor Pegi rating.

Secondly, the ratings on the box regardless of if its Pegi or BBFC does not stop stupid parents from buying their kids games they are too young to play, nor does it stop kids from trying to get hold of such games. People I know in retail have tried numerous times to explain to a parent who is obviously buying a game for a kid that its really not suitable but it falls on deaf ears. I just see Pegi and its poor ratings making the whole situation worse.

There's a relatively simple way for stores to protect themselves, if they fear repercussions for selling a game to an adult who then gives it to their kids: create a register that customers have to sign when purchasing a product that's over the legal limit, confirming that they understand the legal implications of them passing it on to someone under the legal age (i.e. the imprisonment/fines are applicable to the person who supplied it to the child, not the store); alongside that, you put up clear notices stating that refusal to sign the register indicates that you will not hold the store responsible for supplying the product.

Creates a win-win situation, you either accept that you are responsible for purchasing and supplying a product for someone under age, or you absolve the seller of responsibilty.

Why the (I assume uneducated) rants at the BBFC (such as the subtle dig in the first post)?

Sure things were pretty bad 'back in the day', I fondly remember the days of tracking down the 'banned list', Cannibal Holocaust still haunts me to this day. But we now have one of the most liberal censorship boards in the world, acting in the interests of consumers, and not in the pockets of the big companies such as the MPAA.

Sure you can go unrated in the US, but for 99% of movies this means commercial suicide, and for the odd gem that needs to be unrated and would never see the light of day with an 18 cert here in the UK, we can just import it.

I fail to see exactly how this is going to be better than the existing BBFC classification system.

As many people rightly pointed out, the BBFC is extremely lenient when it comes to actual censorship - I can think of two instances where a game was initially denied classification, both of which were subsequently granted classification at appeal.

The BBFC ratings are also instantly recognisable as age limits, whereas PEGI ratings have always been purely advisory - it's going to be tough to get people to take note that PEGI ratings are now legally binding unless it's made very clear at point of purchase.

Of course, this all brings us more in line with European ratings standards, and that's just soooo OBVIOUSLY a good thing for its own sake.

The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association in the UK is set to front the bill for a new marketing and PR campaign to educate consumers about the newly unveiled PEGI ratings system. The industry seems very willing to regulate itself and these efforts should be noted.