It’s been a long time coming, but it appears that finally the British government are taking games seriously, and plan on giving every game a proper classification.
It’s amazed me for a long time that this hasn’t happened. Putting aside the usual arguments of “blame the parents” for a second here, it’s a little-known fact that the majority of games don’t get a proper certification that forbids a minor from going into any shop and buying it. Currently, the state of play is as follows:
Under the Video Recordings Act, most games are exempt from the British Board of Film Classification and only lose this exemption if they depict, to any significant extent, gross violence against humans or animals. Other games can be classified by a separate, entirely voluntary pan-European scheme administered by the Video Standards Council.
The Guardian
What’s even worse is that not only are PEGI ratings entirely voluntary, they’re only advisory. A 10 year old can still go into any game shop with a PEGI rating of 16+ and buy it. Technically, the retailer can’t stop them.
Although it’s all well and good trying to implement required certification on all games though, it still boils down to the old issue of people actually enforcing it. The government are jabbering on about issuing fines to retailers who break the new certifications if they come into play, but who is going to enforce them? I hardly see a Games Police on the horizon.
So then it just becomes yet another pointless law that sounds good in practice and looks good on press releases, but in actuality is about as useful as a drowning lifeguard.
