Prometheus
Well-Known Member
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- Mar 8, 2008
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I just heard the news that, in the UK, PEGI ratings will be the official, legally-enforcable game age ratings standard from July 30th, and I really have to express my extreme disappointment.
I've ranted at length about PEGI's oddball policies before, of course, but not about this particular event.
Time and again, PEGI has proven itself to be bizarre (for example, the comic book-esque Kid Icarus: Uprising, the compilation of classic card and board games 42 All-Time Classics, and, when it was still in production, the cartoon-like MegaMan Legends 3, all received the same 12 age-rating, for example, Otogi 2 - as a game that features lots of gore
https://www.youtube.com/embed/-a5758cpTXU?feature=oembed), and is frequently not recognised as a content suitability rating.
The latter shows up a big problem with the fact that PEGI will be legally enforcable - the system is just not understood by most people*, unlike the universally understood BBFC ratings, which are clearer in their purpose (Universal - Suitable for All; 12; 15; 18; All with accompanying text on the packaging to further clarify their purpose). You'll often see this issue in customer reviews or overhear it in game shops - "It said 3+, but my kid can't read and it has a lot of text, so obviously there's a problem with this game.", "You're not having that, it says it's for babies!", and so on and so forth. And now this confusing system is supposed to be the law?
*(3+; 7+; 12+; 16+; and 18+ look to most people like "This is for this age-group.", rather than any indicator of content suitability; The design of these ratings images does not give any indication that they are an age-rating (they're rendered as large, colourful squares), and there is no accompanying text to give further detail on the ratings; It has silly descriptor icons that don't really tell you anything useful that couldn't be done better in text form (for example, if you saw a picture of a spider on the back of a game's box, what would your immediate thought be as to the icon's meaning? Bear in mind that PEGI icons don't feature text to tell you what they mean); And, in spite of being called the Pan-European Game Information ratings, the system is not even remotely consistent across Europe - quite often you can go across the channel to France, for example, and see the very same games, but with completely different age-ratings - rated under this same allegedly universal system. It's very much a "Me too!" ratings system that wants so very badly to be all grown-up like the BBFC's widely-understood ratings, but which fails due to its poor and confusing design, and which doesn't want to allow the oversight of such an organisation any longer.)
I also remember the storm created when the BBFC denied a rating to a particularly grim product. To be quite honest, I would not trust an industry-run body to have the same oversight, or to have anything but its own interests at heart, and this is another reason that I feel concern at PEGI being granted status as the legal age-ratings system for video games in the UK.
Has anyone else heard about this? Is anyone else bothered by it, too?
I've ranted at length about PEGI's oddball policies before, of course, but not about this particular event.
Time and again, PEGI has proven itself to be bizarre (for example, the comic book-esque Kid Icarus: Uprising, the compilation of classic card and board games 42 All-Time Classics, and, when it was still in production, the cartoon-like MegaMan Legends 3, all received the same 12 age-rating, for example, Otogi 2 - as a game that features lots of gore
https://www.youtube.com/embed/-a5758cpTXU?feature=oembed), and is frequently not recognised as a content suitability rating.
The latter shows up a big problem with the fact that PEGI will be legally enforcable - the system is just not understood by most people*, unlike the universally understood BBFC ratings, which are clearer in their purpose (Universal - Suitable for All; 12; 15; 18; All with accompanying text on the packaging to further clarify their purpose). You'll often see this issue in customer reviews or overhear it in game shops - "It said 3+, but my kid can't read and it has a lot of text, so obviously there's a problem with this game.", "You're not having that, it says it's for babies!", and so on and so forth. And now this confusing system is supposed to be the law?
*(3+; 7+; 12+; 16+; and 18+ look to most people like "This is for this age-group.", rather than any indicator of content suitability; The design of these ratings images does not give any indication that they are an age-rating (they're rendered as large, colourful squares), and there is no accompanying text to give further detail on the ratings; It has silly descriptor icons that don't really tell you anything useful that couldn't be done better in text form (for example, if you saw a picture of a spider on the back of a game's box, what would your immediate thought be as to the icon's meaning? Bear in mind that PEGI icons don't feature text to tell you what they mean); And, in spite of being called the Pan-European Game Information ratings, the system is not even remotely consistent across Europe - quite often you can go across the channel to France, for example, and see the very same games, but with completely different age-ratings - rated under this same allegedly universal system. It's very much a "Me too!" ratings system that wants so very badly to be all grown-up like the BBFC's widely-understood ratings, but which fails due to its poor and confusing design, and which doesn't want to allow the oversight of such an organisation any longer.)
I also remember the storm created when the BBFC denied a rating to a particularly grim product. To be quite honest, I would not trust an industry-run body to have the same oversight, or to have anything but its own interests at heart, and this is another reason that I feel concern at PEGI being granted status as the legal age-ratings system for video games in the UK.
Has anyone else heard about this? Is anyone else bothered by it, too?
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