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ELSPA: UK Government should embrace PEGI
ELSPA: UK Government should embrace PEGI
ELSPA, the UK association of entertainment software publishers, today called upon the UK Government "to embrace a single games age ratings system in Europe". ELSPA's Director General Paul Jackson said in a speech at Whitehall that the adoption of the PEGI (the Pan European Games Ratings Information) system was the single most important decision the UK industry has faced in a generation.
In the UK, two age rating systems compete with each other, PEGI and the BBFC rating (British Board of Film Classification). The latter is currently reviewing 250 to 300 game titles per year (in comparison to 500 to 600 movies and at least 10.0000 DVDs). Only the first five hours of a video games are played. After the "Byron report" (an official research by Dr. Tanya Byron) came to the conclusion that the current age ratings for video games in the UK are not in all cases satisfactory, the BBFC obviously wants more power. In particular, BBFC claimed that only a small group of people are responsible for rating games for PEGI, implying that those ratings cannot be accurate.
Today, ELSPA's Paul Jackson said:
“PEGI represents the “gold standard” today, and will undoubtedly be the best system for tomorrow. PEGI is clearly the only ratings system which has the power to prevent game publishers distributing unsuitable content to children, online and offline. Only PEGI fully assesses all games content. It is designed specifically for interactive software. It understands games and their potential for infinite variations. That’s why it is backed by the vast majority of the computer games industry.“
Jackson went on to say that there should be a sole classification system which protects both now and in the future, both online and offline. Of course, he (and all the UK publishers) want that system to be PEGI -- which they can control -- instead of the BBFC system, which they can't control. PEGI members have repeatedly claimed that only the industry has the knowledge and flexibility to react to changes in technology and game styles.
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Interesting, 27 votes and no comments.
Then let me be the first to say that I would put more trust in the industry in controlling itself, then into the government doing the same. One contributing factor is that I think that any misuse of the system would result in a massive loss of image for the industry, the other reason is that my trust in any government is currently at an all-time low.
At first it sounds like a problem waiting to happen, but when you think about it, nobody has more interest then the game industry itself to make this work. 15 years ago the industry had to face the problem that everybody thought that games where just for kids, this has changes and now everybody thinks that games are only about killing and slaughter. So putting an 18+ title in the hands of an 14 year old is exactly what they don't want to happen.
Starkiller, I agree on most of your points, and in a talk I had some time ago with Jens Uwe Intat, EA's European Publishing boss, he argued exactly along the line of "With a toothless age verification system, there could be short-term benefits for the industry, but in the long run we would suffer". Still, PEGI is undoubtedly less tough than the German USK, which more or less is devised by the government (this is a simplification, but close to the truth). So the question is more about what your viewpoint is: Do you think that youths can be treated to more brutal staff, or not? I don't think there's an easy answer (although I tend to go with the PEGI system).
I believe that to be a trick question, but let me try to answer anyway:
In my opinion I do not endorse young kinds playing violent video games by being in favor of the PEGI-system, but I strongly believe that they would do a better job out of self-interest.
Regarding your question if I think that kinds these days can take more then we give them credit for? Hell yes, I think it's absolute rubbish trying to shield our kinds from reality until they turn 18. In my opinion, if this system would actually work in the first place, all we would accomplish would be raising teenagers that would be unfit for life.
Ok maybe that was laying it on a bit thick, but that's my opinion. I do not believe however that our youth should be able to see everything (which is a popular counter-argument) I just criticize a system that tries to shift the responsibility away from the parents towards salespersons who are completely untrained in this area.
As a last thought, I honestly can't recall a game or a movie that was too much to handle for me or any of my friends when we were young. We sure did enjoy a few action movies that were probably not rated for our age, but all the really nasty and disturbing stuff was filtered by our parents anyway.
So I think that there should be some control, but not full control, and most politicians picking up the topic are just trying to show what a great family oriented guy they are, without fear of upsetting their industrial sponsors.
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