Online Extension of Europe’s PEGI Ratings Announced
By Ron on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 5:11 PM PST In Games Industry
At the Expert Conference 2007 in Brussels, the Interactive Software Federation of Europe announced an extension of the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) game rating system. The current system is used for all offline retail products in the UK and Europe, and the announced extension will cover online gaming via consoles, PC’s, and mobile phones.
The European Parliament’s Commissioner for Education and Culture, Viviane Reding said of the new extension, “The protection of children as users of online technologies is of great importance for the Commission.”
The new online system has been in development for eighteen months, and will evidence itself in a new logo on game packaging. You can also expect to see the new website for the initiative on packaging as well. The site will also offer an explanation of the new ratings, and advice for parents.
Unlike the ESRB system, which specifies age ratings for games, the PEGI system shows that the publisher has agreed to an online safety code and framework contract. The contract includes an obligation to to keep the site “free from illegal and offensive content created by users and any undesirable links, as well as measures for the protection of young people and their privacy when engaging in online gameplay.”
This sounds to me like it puts an awful lot of responsibility on the developer and the publisher. Not only are they required by the ‘contract’ to actively police their website for user content that violates the ’safety code,’ but they are also required to keep an eye on user content in game, it sounds like.
The big question in my mind is how the system is looking at enforcement. For example, is the Blizzard approach of ‘report it, we’ll investigate, and take action if necessary’ good enough to meet the standards? If not, and they require a much more preventative approach, I can only imagine the costs that could mean a publisher would have to incur for upkeep and maintenance in an online game.
I’m fairly confident in saying that all gamers believe that kids should be looked out for online, but sometimes it gets taken too far. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if this is one of those times.
