PEGI Ratings System

PEGI (Pan European Game Information) is a rating system that advises European customers, mainly parents, to what is acceptable for a certain age range and content is included in a game. Here are the age ratings and their content:                                                

                                                       

Suitable for ages 3 and over. May contain some violence in a comical context (ie. very mild cartoon slapstick), but otherwise should be age-appropriate for young children.

Suitable for ages 7 and over. May contain occasional violence to non-realistic fantasy characters or elements that could frighten younger children.  

    

Suitable for ages 12 and over. May contain course language, violence in a fantasy setting, mild sex references and innuendos, or gambling.

Suitable for ages 16 and over. May contain explicit violence, strong language, sexual references or content, gambling, or drug use.

Suitable for ages 18 and over. May contain graphic violence towards defenseless people, scenes of a sexual nature, drug use, or gambling and discrimination.






For developers, the result of these changes is that they now know what age rating their game is likely to attain before they submit it for rating. This allows them to adjust or alter content accordingly. Also, in the past, retailers treated PEGI as if it was legally enforceable, – even though they were only advisory – but sometimes this presented problems for retail as an awkward customer who could demand a PEGI rated game be sold to him even though he might be under the age restriction on the packaging. With the new law, all the PEGI 12, 16 and 18 ratings become legally enforceable, which means those games must have a PEGI rating to be sold legally. And just like games that required a BBFC classification in the past, it remains illegal to sell those to someone younger than the rating indicates. That is not new, but it includes a larger group of games.