Oh, PEGI, how you both amuse and bemuse me.

[Prometheus]

This is a brief ramble about PEGI's bizarre ratings system and how completely confusing and misleading it is.


The misleadingly-named MegaMan Legends 3: Prototype Version (misleading because it is actually a prologue-game in the vein of what they did for Dead Rising 2, rather than a prototype) has been granted its European rating, now. But it's a 12+! The reason given is "Non realistic looking violence towards human characters". I think you could probably rate most games 12+ on this very basis alone (never mind the fact that they often apply this same reasoning to games where the characters are in fact not human, as well - including some other Mega Man games).


This bothers me a bit, hence the ramble, as it's inconsistency on PEGI's part. This is the same 12+ rating applied to games like Otogi 2, which features a graphic scene of ritual throat-slashing suicide early on (shown beginning at around four minutes and forty seconds in

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-a5758cpTXU?feature=oembed - NSFW warning, obviously, due to this scene).

It is very highly unlikely that any content in MegaMan Legends 3: Prototype Version (or, indeed, the full game, if they get the production greenlight for it) is even close to being on the same level as that of Otogi 2, so why on Earth has this rating been given? This is just as confusing to me as giving the same 12+ rating to the likes of the completely harmless 42 All-Time Classics, which consists purely of traditional card games and board games.


In short: PEGI is ridiculous and inconsistent. Business as usual.


Anybody else noticed any bizarre ratings lately?

 

[Blue Protoman]

Game ratings are not the issue. The people behind them are.

 

[Jourdy288]

Game ratings are not the issue. The people behind them are.

This. How do Halo and GTA get the same rating? Come think of it, how did The Matrix and Alien get the same ratings 0_o?!

 

[Prometheus]

Game ratings are not the issue. The people behind them are.

That's exactly it. I'm talking about PEGI as an organisation, not about its ratings, per se.


Unfortunately, these confusing and inconsistent messes are now the sole game ratings used in the UK (thanks to the previous political party who were in power), instead of the BBFC's superior (and legally-binding) ones which there was once a chance of using as the sole ratings system.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Well, the ESRB seems to have gotten better in recent years. The real issue these days is parents not properly educating their kids about the material in the games. (eg, sexuality, violence, differences between reality and fantasy, etc.)

 

[Nintendo]

They should get gamers to rate games.

 

[Prometheus]

^ Letting gamers do that work would be a very bad idea, as I suspect it would be likely to introduce problems with bias. That's one of the current problems with PEGI (as PEGI puts too much trust in developers, in addition to the separate problem I described in my first post, whereby they are inconsistent and issue confusing, and often contradictory ratings), in fact, and something I would like to see eliminated.

 

[Nintendo]

Well, it just doesn't sound like these games are even being played or review.

 

[DaMummy]

i for one always knew mega man was an extremely violent game and i can see where Prometheus gets her violent streak from now

 

[darfgarf]

Well, it just doesn't sound like these games are even being played or review.

they really don't, they take a look at demo footage and the blurb on the back of the box

 

[Prometheus]

^ They trust the developers to provide relevant footage of the worst content, at that.


I really wish we had the BBFC as the sole ratings board for games. I could understand MegaMan Legends 3 possibly getting a "PG" or somesuch, in that instance - although looking at some of the movies in my collection (such as the "U"-rated Watership Down, which is probably more bloody and grim than MegaMan Legends 3 ever would be :lol: ), I suspect it would quite rightly get a "U".

 

[foxblock]

Here is another interesting point on the subject: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111273-Psychologist-Suggests-Ditching-Age-Rating-and-Going-With-Content-Instead


In general I think ratings are necessary for parents to get an idea of what they are buying their little kid right now.


Then again a simple 6+, 12+, 18+ or whatever won't do, you simply cannot put all games into those arbitrary categories, some games might features some violence, but teach a valuable lesson on the other hand, the question is how extreme is the violence, is it controlled by the player, inflicted to the player, etc.


I guess part of those might be already covered, but it seems to me that content is always judged with a very narrow view, violence is judged on certain guidelines, sexuality is judged on certain guidelines, etc., no connections between those groups are made. (At least it seems to me like that, have not been involved into the process of rating a game).


There are games like Manhunt with just extreme and senseless violence, which might get the same rating as a Left 4 Dead, which also features violence against humans, but it also very cooperatively played and requires a lot of team-work. Should those two games get rated the same?


Also it is quite frightening to see that ratings have such a big impact on how games are made or cut. Sometimes the developer has to fear (in that fear cut stuff from the game), to get a 12+ rating (instead of 16+ or 18+ depending on the local rating system) and get his game available to a wider audience.


Here in Germany this often involves colouring the blood funny (green, blue, gray), which is as stupid as it can get in my eyes as it changes nothing on the actualy gameplay and the act in which the blood was caused to flow (which might just be the real problem in this matter).


Anyway, it is a tough job to do and I don't see an easy solution, but instead of give fixed age ratings give more elaborate content-warnings and make the age rating optional (to a certain degree, a 9 year old certainly should not be able to play Manhunt or similar).

 

[Prometheus]

I have to give this one a bump, as a recent experience is related to it.


I picked up Kid Icarus: Uprising for my 3DS, the other day. I did this at a store-chain where you can reserve online (which is a good thing, as they only had three copies left in stock at the time), and then pick up in-store at an automated booth where you pay with a credit card. Upon entering my reservation number, I received a message informing me that I was not allowed to pay for this item at the automated booth, and had to go to a manned till, instead, so I did. It wasn't until I checked my receipt after paying that I realised why: The game has a PEGI rating of 12. Now, bear in mind, PEGI ratings are not legally-binding, and if someone too young to be buying a 12-rated game (be it BBFC-rated or PEGI-rated) is trying to do so at a credit card-only booth, there are far greater problems afoot.


That's not all, though. There is just nothing in the game to warrant the age-rating - it's all very comic book-like, and doesn't in any way take itself seriously.


The more I encounter stuff like this, the more it looks to me like, lately, the PEGI 12 rating is being used to shuffle off games that are perfectly family-friendly and no more "violent" or "bad" than the latest hit animated movie, in order to protect the over-sensitive. Bear in mind that this is the same rating, as I said before back when this thread started, used for a compilation of innocuous card and board games, another comic book-styled game (since cancelled, but we keep on fighting ), and a game whose plot is kicked off by a gory ritual throat-slashing group-suicide. There is clearly a problem with how this particular rating is being implemented - the latter should've been a 15 or an 18, and there's no way that playing video game versions of checkers and card games should be age-restricted.


Indeed, if Dr. Mario were a newly-released game, now, I'm quite sure that it would also get this flawed 12 rating.

 

[EvilDragon]

Not sure if PEGI is to blame... at least in Germany there are cases where the developer can rate their games themselves (I asked looong ago because of my File Archive )


Might be downloadable games, etc.


So in this case, most developers give it a rating that doesn't hurt their sales and in the same time is safe enough (as it's their own responsibility if they rate a game 6+ and it turns out to be 12+ on a later control... this will cost them a lot!)


So 12+ is a good compromise. They won't lose a lot of sales this way but are safe.

 

[mcobit]

That brings up a question: Do we need such a rating on the repo?

 

[fahrstuhl]

I thought PEGI was some kind of self-certification. There's a survey publishers/developers fill out and chose a rating themselves, which is in the end verified by some institution.


In Germany there are actually two "certifications": The USK (Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle = Self-Monitoring of Entertainment Software), which is a board (consisting of representatives of the church, among others oo" The binding of Isaac got a higher rating (16+) because of (amomg other reasons) blasphemic content...) which gives the games ratings similar to the PEGI ones, but is legally binding.


And then there's the BPJM (Bundesprüfstelle für Jugendgefährdende Medien = Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons) which can either index a piece of media according to some laws (racism, glorification of violence) which makes it extremely hard (but not illegal) to sell and buy said media or forward it to the USK which gives it it's rating in the end... Or forward it to a court to have it seized, which does make it illegal to sell.


Also some german politicians tried to establish a certification for websites, which might have affected the repo.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

The parents have to take their responsibilities, not the internet.

 

[fusion_power]

Compared with our USK System here in germany, I find the PEGI ratings quite liberal and fair. And usualy, the international rated games are uncut. In Germany, it happens quite often, that even an USK 18 Game is only available in a censored version. I really wish that PEGI would be used here too.

 

[fahrstuhl]

Compared with our USK System here in germany, I find the PEGI ratings quite liberal and fair. And usualy, the international rated games are uncut. In Germany, it happens quite often, that even an USK 18 Game is only available in a censored version. I really wish that PEGI would be used here too.

Actually, the USK isn't the problem, it's the Index and the corresponding laws (like §131 StGB "depiction of violence"). Games are cut to get past the BPJM, because only then the USK may rate the games.