At the end of the day, gaming is supposed to be fun. It's important that we all remember that :)
What is PEGI?
PEGI stands for Pan European Game Information, and is a European-based system for the gaming industry to try and help parents to make informed decisions about the games their children play.
What countries use the PEGI rating system?
There are currently 30 European countries that use PEGI's rating system: Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia, Belgium, Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden, Cyprus, France, Israel, Malta, Romania, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovak Republic and the United Kingdom.
What companies support PEGI ratings?
Since it is law, all companies must use the ratings, but Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft alongside all of the major games developers and publishers have put their full support behind the system.
What are the PEGI age ratings?
If you have ever been to the Cinema, or bought a Video or DVD, you will probably have come across a very similar system:
The age ratings are pretty self-explanatory, but the age stated for a specific game means that the game isn't suitable for anyone younger than the stated age. This could be because of a certain level of violence, bad language or some other reason, that the Board has deemed the game unfit for anyone below this age.
What do the PEGI icons mean?
Violence. As I've stated before, I find this category to be a little bit too vague, because there are varying levels of violence, some of which may be suitable for younger age groups, whilst others obviously isn't. I think that if I was a parent I'd want a bit more information before I could make an informed decision.
Bad Language. Game contains bad language. Typically this is going to be swearing/cuss words, but I wonder if it will include blasphemy? With changing attitudes to language, I'm also curious to know what words would be included. Would you include "cow", or "shit" for example?
Fear. Game may be scary or frightening to young children. This could potentially cover a wide variety of things from spiders, ghosts or monsters.
Sex. This doesn't necessarily mean full-on animated porno (seriously, is there actually a game that contains that...or do I really want to know the answer to that?), but it could also include partial nudity or references of a sexual nature.
Drugs. Either drug-use or drugs are referred to, probably within the dialog. I imagine references could be direct or indirect use.
Discrimination. Game includes characters who discriminate, or encourage discrimination. This could perhaps be by form of designated tasks that require the player to discriminate against another character for whatever reason; gender, race, sexuality etc.
Gambling. Game depicts gambling, encourages it or teaches it. This could be card games, roulette, one-armed bandits etc as played with the aim of winning (or losing) money.
Online Gaming. Informs of games that are played over the internet, whether that is predominantly or only in part. This allows the parent to make the decision about whether or not they think that their child is old enough to be playing games potentially against complete strangers.
