VP For EA UK Thinks PEGI A-OK
What’s the better game ratings body: Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) or the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC)?
It’s been an incredibly hot topic in the weeks leading up to Thursday’s release of the Byron Report. Rumor has that it that Byron will recommend one rating organization over the other and many game industry execs and journalists have weighed in with opinions of their own.
Keith Ramsdale, VP and general manager of Electronic Arts in the UK and Ireland, revealed in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz that he prefers PEGI:
[PEGI is] a European system that works in 28 countries. They rate something like 2000 games, compared to the [258] that the BBFC rates - but primarily they’re a videogames classification system, and therefore understand it, know it, and can work within the realms of what videogames are doing.
Then we get a far more appropriate outcome for the consumer… Last year there were something like 42 games that were rated ‘18 plus’ by PEGI, and of those the BBFC decided to down-rate 19 of them to a ‘15′ and two of them down to a ‘12′ - so when it comes to protecting the consumer, PEGI proves to be more robust I think.
Ramsdale offers America’s ESRB as an example of why industry self-regulation works:
Even though it’s self-regulatory, even though we can self-classify - if we classify incorrectly, then we will be imposed with significant fines. So I think the ESRB proves that it doesn’t have to be legislative, it can be self-regulatory, but there are certain processes that need to be in place to make sure that you’ve got that…
I don’t know if [legislation] would be a good or a bad thing, I just don’t think it’s necessary, because if we get a self-regulatory body working properly, there’s just no need for it. I think what needs to happen is for the government to give PEGI that power of classification.
While Ramsdale doesn’t see a problem at retail, he says three things need to happen:
The first is that the publisher needs to be compliant against the classification, so if our content is ‘18′, we put ‘18′ on that box. The second part is retailers need to make sure they don’t inappropriate games to minors…
And the final piece is for us to educate the public. Tanya Byron has said publicly that she wants the industry, and that includes retail, to do its part. And then it’s about parental control.
-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen
March 26th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
“And with the ESRB you’ve got a body there that does have quite sharp teeth - if a retailer fails to comply and sells a Mature-rated game to a minor, the ESRB will come down on them, as they would with publishers.” -Ramsdale
I feel it’s important to point out that Ramsdale doesn’t have this part quite right. The ESRB can fine publishers and while it does work closely with retailers, it does not have the authority to fine those that break store policy regarding sales to minors.
Andrew Eisen
March 26th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
It is kind of interesting to see that the praise for the ESRB overseas. I’m not too fond of them because as far as I know it’s like the movie rating system in that the reviewers are in a vacuum and the way they rate is also unknown to the consumers. PEGI on the other hand, they have their ratings up on their website so that anyone can see how they rate them. I’ve yet to find anything from the ESRB.
But other than that I’m ok with them.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Delin,
An explanation of the ESRB’s rating process can be found at its website.
http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_process.jsp
Andrew Eisen
March 26th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
But.. I thought that the ESRB wanted to flood childrens minds with evil images… could it.. could it be a good thing.. Could *gasp* JT be wrong?!?
But seriously, it’s good to see the ESRB get some support. They do a great job and take a ton of flack from both gamers and critics.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Well, it answers some questions, but at the end of the day we still don’t know what game A is rated T and game B is rated M. With PEGI they have reasons why each game is rated according to something.
Maybe this is a better explanation of my issue with the ESRB over PEGI.
ESRB is subjective ratings, while PEGI looks to me to be Objective.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Delin,
I’m really not following you. We do know what each game is rated. It says so on the site.
ESRB also gives reasons why a game is rated a certain way in the form of content descriptors. ESRB has over 30 while PEGI uses only 7.
I really don’t see how the ESRB is subjective while PEGI is objective. To me, all content ratings by there very nature are subjective.
Andrew Eisen
March 26th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
PEGI is the best. Unlike the ESRB and BBFC, PEGI does not ban games. They just give it a rating. The ESRB knows the no one will allow AO games and will use it to force censorship. PEGI just gives it a rating.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
It’s entirely possible that I’m jumping at shadows and making stuff up. Maybe, what I’m saying is that I can find the PEGI sheet of what they are looking at for say an 18+ game but I can’t find the sheet for an ESRB M rating.
Also, I noticed a small typo in my previous post.
Well, it answers some questions, but at the end of the day we still don’t know why game A is rated T and game B is rated M.
Now, I’m not saying I don’t like the ESRB, or that what they do is bad, far from it. It might just be that somewhere in my mind the ESRB rating system seems very similar to the movie rating system where the whole process if very mysterious and no one is sure how the ratings come about.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Delin,
Two things:
1. What sheet? Do you mean the assessment form?
2. The ESRB is actually very similar to the movie ratings system. That said, what about the rating process do you find so mysterious?
Andrew Eisen
March 27th, 2008 at 12:10 am
@AE
1) Probably, I’ve couldn’t find one on ESRB’s site.
2) We don’t know what the reviewers are looking for when they brand a game with a rating. With PEGI I can look at the assessment form and say why this game is rated 18 or whatever. I can’t tell that from the ESRB.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Cheater87:
I suggest going to read one of the multitude of other threads that explains that the UK will ALWAYS give whichever ratings body it favours the force of law therefore PEGI will HAVE to ban some games if the guidelines suggest they have to. Furthermore, PEGI doesn’t review their games, it just gives out tick sheets for the developers to fill in, which leaves it wide open to explotation.
As for the ESRB, thats the other side of the pond and irrelevent to the Byron report. Not quite sure why Ramsdale brought it up really given that if anything is going to happen at all it will be to TIGHTEN regulations, not exchange a legally enforced ratings board for an industry run one with no legal enforcement.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Delin,
Yes, the ESRB’s assessment form, to my knowledge, is not available on its website and has never been released to the public. Although, from descriptions publishers have given over the years, it sounds pretty similar to PEGI’s.
Are you saying that the filled out assessment form is available for each PEGI rated game? If so, where?
Andrew Eisen
March 27th, 2008 at 5:27 am
Keith Ramsdale said:
“Then we get a far more appropriate outcome for the consumer… Last year there were something like 42 games that were rated ‘18 plus’ by PEGI, and of those the BBFC decided to down-rate 19 of them to a ‘15′ and two of them down to a ‘12′ - so when it comes to protecting the consumer, PEGI proves to be more robust I think.”
Are we seriously supposed to believe that Ramsdale thinks PEGI is a good thing because they are more severe with their game ratings? I don’t buy that for a second.
On another point, the BBC (the most respectable news-source we have) have said that the report says that Byron wants games to be rated like films are. I don’t know yet whether this was what Byron said (and I can’t see how it can be), or how the newsreaders precis the news for the plebs, but it makes me want to scream in frustration. How does anyone not know this is done already? (Oh yeah, and they included the Manhunter murder parents again, who described their son being stabbed 60 times as a copycat of the game).
March 27th, 2008 at 6:32 am
I heard Byron on the radio this morning. She said that the evidence that video games harmed children was “equivocal” but she wanted to take a safe rather than sorry approach.
You can hear her here on the 7:30 slot. (give it a minute or so to get to the item.)
She wants games 12+ to carry labels and she wants the labels to be the ones familiar to parents. i.e. they should look like the BBFC film stamps. She doesn’t explicitly express a preference for a rating system though, but presumably if they want to use BBFC labels that means they will be the body chosen to do the job.
Credit to Byron though, she seemed to be more concerned with ensuring parents are better informed rather than going legislation mad.
Gift.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Seems the Byron reports big decision is… to have a 12 rating just like with Movies. Sounds sensible to me, albeit an increased workload for the BBFC. If this is all that the report is finding - that parents need a bit more help with games between E and 15 - then I’m all for it. I don’t yet know if there is any devil in the detail, but this is all that is being reported thus far.
So as it stands right now I think that more games will be getting rated and some will be getting a big black 12 on the front of the box. Let’s hear it for sensible outcomes.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Thankfully the BBC website has a calmer view of the whole thing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7314751.stm
Basically, once you get past the “Educate parents”/”Put a classification system in place” obviousness, the report basically says that the BBFC is the way to go, and will be made to review more games rather than just the sex’n'violence games, a 12 rating should be introduced (although the BBFC already has that, so I don’t why that needed to be suggested), and shops that sell games to underage children should be punished. The side effect is that the European system, PEGI, will probably be dropped in the UK.
All in all, very sensible. In the UK we don’t have arguments about a 14 year old’s first amendment rights to buy a Mature game. If it says 18 on the box, you have to be 18 to buy it. This is about as close to the status quo as you could have expected before the report was released. There is also an immense amount of public trust in, and knowledge about, the BBFC, as it has been around since 1912.
(Yes I know some people think that they mucked up over Manhunt 2, but the system worked, and the game was released).
March 29th, 2008 at 9:19 am
EA UK Thinks Goatse A-OK
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