PEGI Game Ratings

If you’ve ever bought a video game from a shop then you will have already seen PEGI in action. This is the organisation that makes sure that you know what you are getting when you buy that copy of “Rabid Chainsaw Massacre III with Flame Thrower” for your six year old nephew (although with a title like that you should probably have a shrewd idea what you are getting, and it might not be a wise choice…)

PEGI implements a European wide ratings system for games which lets the buyer know what kind of content the game will have and also provides age ratings for purchasers. The big games publishers all use the PEGI ratings on their products and submit them for rating as part of the development process.

If you are making video games it is important to know how the ratings are applied. If you are making a kids game you might find it useful to have a PEGI rating, so that parents would be more inclined to buy it.

Today Ian and Gianni came over from PEGI to describe how the ratings process works and what you can do (and not do) to make sure that your content hits the audience you intended. It was a great talk with lots of “what would you do?” moments where the audience was invited to comment on the impact of game design choices. Good stuff.