U.K. PEGI Ratings Delayed Once Again

[DangNabbit]

This is a shame, the BBFC has really shown the world how censors should do their job: look at context, give detailed easily accessible reports, and with clear ratings that are already understood through use in the film industry.

Haven't dealt with PEGI an awful lot, but they never seem to be as high quality with either judgments or ratings.

 

[Random Name 4]

This is a shame, the BBFC has really shown the world how censors should do their job: look at context, give detailed easily accessible reports, and with clear ratings that are already understood through use in the film industry.

Haven't dealt with PEGI an awful lot, but they never seem to be as high quality with either judgments or ratings.

I would agree with you, but it is complete bullshit that there is no unrated 18 rating. BBFC still censors things even at the highest age bracket, because adult apparently can't handle fake legally filmed things that happen to have objective content.

 

[llamastorm.games]

I do not want PEGI ratings on my games
Mass Effect for example when rated by PEGI acquired an 18+ rating, yet the BBFC version a 12 which is pretty reasonable.
PEGI i assume is run by right wing tools, the kind of group who do think gaming is harmful and corrupting children.

 

[DangNabbit]

This is a shame, the BBFC has really shown the world how censors should do their job: look at context, give detailed easily accessible reports, and with clear ratings that are already understood through use in the film industry.

Haven't dealt with PEGI an awful lot, but they never seem to be as high quality with either judgments or ratings.

I would agree with you, but it is complete bullshit that there is no unrated 18 rating. BBFC still censors things even at the highest age bracket, because adult apparently can't handle fake legally filmed things that happen to have objective content.

Do you mean that once the content gets to a certain stage, they just remove it rather than keep it in at 18? I didn't know that if so, that sucks.

 

[rees263]

I agree with the consensus that PEGI seems to do a much worse job than the BBFC at rating games. At least the BBFC seems to rate closer to my mindset. Motorstorm Pacific Rift gets a 16+ rating! Because you can throw a punch? Disney films are more violent than that.

However, I suspect that it really won't affect me at all. I'm an adult so ratings are meaningless to me, I get all my info on games from places like the Escapist anyway. If I were to have children in the future (and by god they'll love games!) then I will be able to judge content myself, and the ratings will still be meaningless.

Maybe this is to cut down on the BBFC workload? Does anyone know what the legality will be regarding the PEGI ratings? (Again, not that it matters all that much to me, just interested)

 

[MiketheBassMan]

The ESRB has the best rating system, because every rating is justified on the box with any of seven or so descriptors attached to each level, and multiple rating levels breaking down into key age groups. You know who it's appropriate for, and you know why in plain English. The flexible yet simple to understand ESRB rating is more powerful than the overly simplified PEGI or abstractly related BBFC. Rating games like films seems to me a little silly, and if it were to come down to PEGI or BBFC, the clear choice would be PEGI.

Spoiler: Duke Nukem gets all of them.

 

[Pilkingtube]

The ESRB has the best rating system, because every rating is justified on the box with any of seven or so descriptors attached to each level, and multiple rating levels breaking down into key age groups. You know who it's appropriate for, and you know why in plain English. The flexible yet simple to understand ESRB rating is more powerful than the overly simplified PEGI or abstractly related BBFC. Rating games like films seems to me a little silly, and if it were to come down to PEGI or BBFC, the clear choice would be PEGI.

Spoiler: Duke Nukem gets all of them.

I get that the BBFC was originally setup for film classification, but they've done a good job of rating games really, their reports are usually spot-on compared to PEGI. Admittedly they might want to take some cues from the ESRB system from over in the Americas, but obviously we shouldn't actually use the ESRB, we have different cultural values.

I never understand with the ESRB why violence is fine but sex isn't, sex is more normal than violence, no?

 

[MiketheBassMan]

The ESRB has the best rating system, because every rating is justified on the box with any of seven or so descriptors attached to each level, and multiple rating levels breaking down into key age groups. You know who it's appropriate for, and you know why in plain English. The flexible yet simple to understand ESRB rating is more powerful than the overly simplified PEGI or abstractly related BBFC. Rating games like films seems to me a little silly, and if it were to come down to PEGI or BBFC, the clear choice would be PEGI.

Spoiler: Duke Nukem gets all of them.

I get that the BBFC was originally setup for film classification, but they've done a good job of rating games really, their reports are usually spot-on compared to PEGI. Admittedly they might want to take some cues from the ESRB system from over in the Americas, but obviously we shouldn't actually use the ESRB, we have different cultural values.

I never understand with the ESRB why violence is fine but sex isn't, sex is more normal than violence, no?

That's really what I was trying to get at, the best way to rate games is to really look at their content and press it against cultural values. The BBFC seems to do that well for the UK, and I was suggesting that a rating system that looks more like PEGI or ESRB would be better, not necessarily that PEGI is more qualified than BBFC to rate the games. (This certainly does not seem to be the case)

Your point about sex vs. violence really illustrates the difference in mentality between the US and the UK, and I guess that's evidence enough why ESRB ratings wouldn't catch on.

 

[Therumancer]

On top of this, the EU has proven itself to be almost entirely ineffective internationally during that whole "Georgia" thing where it literally had the Russians invading a nation right on the EU borders. This coming right on the heels of the Russians both threatening Poland for hosting a defensive (interception based) military outpost which they are upset about because it would make it harder to shoot missles into/accross the EU, and then for good measure they shut off the fuel to the EU to show the dependancy and there is nothing the EU was going to do about it. The european nations with militaries availible like France and Spain pretty much sat there going "thank you comrade, can we have another?". The UK at least had an excuse with it's military involved in "The War On Terror".

None of this has anything whatsoever to do with the matter at hand but I do feel compelled to ask, what would you have done? Declared war on Russia to protect a non-EU, non-NATO nation?

Seriously, I'm curious.

I would have taken action at least to the point of putting forces on the border because when someone moves an army into a "buffer" nation at the edge of my country I'm going to be concerned. After all if the Russians don't leave, then I've got a problem with them sitting there right outside my territory. It's very similar on some levels to the Cuban missle crisis (though by no means identical).

The problem here is that the EU pretty much did nothing. What's more the situation with Georgia included a lot of belligerance towards the EU, which was the point. Remember they also threatened Poland around this time (the base they were concerned about is one of the things that would have made their life difficult if they had decided to pretty much annex Georgia), and they cut off the fuel supply to the EU. The EU did nothing about any of this.

If someone moves an army into a nation on my border, threatens part of my union, and then decides to cut off our fuel supply to prove that they can, your damn straight I'm going to do something, even if that means potentially going to war. Right now the EU pretty much demonstrated it can't defend itself, and that it's going to let Russia kick it's can every time it decides to.

Now admittedly I think a lot of the problem is that the "Union" exists in name only. The nations which represent the military might of the EU were either occupied overseas (The UK) or pretty much felt there was nothing threatening them directly. After all Spain and France are pretty well off, can deal with a fuel shortage, and figure if some of those lesser eastern european members like Poland run into trouble that's their issue. If the fuel cut off actually negatively impacts the big countries to a major degree, then they'll act. They probably don't really see things as a union and nations like Poland as the buffer, rather than actual members of the union. I could be wrong, but that's how it looks to me.

The point here is that the EU proved itself to be entirely ineffective. Either too scared to start a war to defend it's own interest, or more likely the big nations just didn't care about the smaller members who were most going to be affected by this and figured they weren't going to act until they had a much larger stake. Either way it's an epic fail.