Pan European Game Information
From Saferpedia
PEGI is an evaluation system of European video games conceived to help parents from Europe to be informed about games they decide to buy.
PEGI was founded in the spring of 2003 and replaced a series of national systems of age rating with a unified system. Nowadays this system is used in about 30 European countries (Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia, Belgium, Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden, Cyprus, France, Israel, Malta, Romania, Switzerland, Check Republic , Greek, Italy, Holland, Slovak Republic şi Great Britain).
The system is supported by main game console producers including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo and also game developers from entire Europe. Games that were evaluated by PEGI contain their logo on the package.
Contents |
PEGI and European Union
The study "European video gamers" from 2008 realized by Nielsen shows that labeling games by ages done by PEGI is recognized by 93 percents of European parents. 62 percents are aware by the European system of game evaluation, 50 percents recognize the content descriptors and 49 percents find the system useful when buying a video game.
PEGI is an example of European harmonization. European Commission supports PEGI auto-regulation: "PEGI appears to have obtained good results and PEGI - Online is a promising initiative making PEGI a good example of auto-regulation ...". Besides that European Parliament in its last report regarding consumers protection "agrees that PEGI system of video game evaluation is an important tool which has improved consumers transparency especially for parents when they buy video games allowing them to make a correct choice regarding video games' compatibility with the age of their children."
Evaluation process
To obtain evaluations for any kind of software package the developer sends the video game together with other supporting materials and fills a content declaration. All these are evaluated by an independent administrator from NICAM (Netherlands Institute for the Classification of Audiovisual Media). After the evaluation, the applicant will receive a license to use the evaluation logo.
PEGI online
This division of PEGI was founded in 2007 and its main objective is to offer young all over the Europe a better protection against inadequate content from online video games.
Another important objective is to educate parents regarding ways to ensure safe conditions for online games. This project is supported directly by European Commission and is co-financed by the Safer Internet Plus program.
PEGI Online has four main principles:
- PEGI Online Safety Code and Framework contract signed by all participants;
- PEGI Online logo, displayed by all license owners;
- Web site for applicants and general public;
- An independent administration that advice and dispute resolution process.
The license to display the PEGI Online logo is guaranteed by PEGI Online administrator for any supplier of online games that meets the requirements of the PEGI Online Safety Code.
Age evaluation
PEGI has five age categories. In Portugal because of the movies classification system two of the PEGI age categories were changed to avoid confusion: third category was changed with fourth and seventh was changed with sixth. Also Finland used a modified scale where 11 became 12 and 16 became 15. On January first 2007 Finland fully adopted the PEGI system and the game evaluation standard. PEGI is a volunteer system. Color codes used by PEGI for icons were announced in June 2009: green for 3 to 7 years, yellow for 12 to 16 years and red for 18 years.
The following is a description of the classification of games:
- 3 years evaluation: Suitable for 3 years and over 3 years. Contains easy violence or suggestive themes;
- 7 years evaluation: Suitable for 7 years and over 7 years.
- 12 years evaluation: Suitable for 12 years and over 12 years. Contains easy violence or actions or themes;
- 16 years evaluation: Suitable for 16 years and over 16 years. Some situations include actions with medium violence to strong violence, mild references to gambling and rude humor.
- 18 years evaluation: Suitable for 18 years and over 18 years. May contain graphical violence, strong sexual content, explicit references to gambling and vulgar language.
This term is in development.
Contribute on developing this term.
