Facing Up to Ratings

Online game developers have often chosen not to rate their offerings. But parental controls within Vista mean unrated games can be excluded altogether—affecting the bottom line. That's focusing attention

by Paul Hyman

The video games ratings system in Europe is just a few months away from tackling two of the biggest challenges facing the ratings system here in the U.S.

The first hurdle is how to deal with the plethora of small, downloadable casual games that typically go unrated because their independent developers choose not to bear that expense. Recently, however, it's been learned that the "parental controls" of the new Microsoft Vista operating system can exclude unrated games, which could cut into the developers' business.

A second hurdle is the best way to control online games -- like MMOGs -- that contain considerable content generated not by the game developers but by the players.

Europe's answer to both challenges will be PEGI Online, a variation of the current four-year-old PEGI (Pan European Game Information) system, according to Laurie Hall, secretary-general of the Video Standards Council (VSC) in London. He heads up the organization that rates games in the U.K. and that is also one of the two bodies charged with administering PEGI, which is used by 27 European countries, with the notable exception of Germany. Just as in the U.S., PEGI is a voluntary system enforced by most retailers who won't sell unrated games.

Hall expects PEGI Online to be launched mid-year.

"The games that are played online will be rated in the same way as retail products, and will use the same criteria," says Hall. "In addition, the game's Web site itself will need to be PEGI-registered. Before a child can begin playing, the parent is directed to the PEGI Web site which will list information about the dangers of allowing a child to play online -- including the fact that a lot of the content is player-generated, especially language. And it will warn about the dangers of chat rooms, about giving out personal information, about anyone asking for payment and about advertisement for other products."

On the PEGI "wish list" is the introduction of filtering software that may eventually allow parents to restrict children to PEGI-registered sites. "The technology is there," says Hall, "but we are not yet committed to it. First we need to get a consensus and then find the funds to do it."

He adds that PEGI Online will become more important as the use of digital distribution to sell games grows. "Eventually," he says, "the majority of games may be online and not in retail stores."

While PEGI Online will not address casual games, Hall believes that "this non-controversial, bottom end of the market doesn't cause anybody any concern" and that the family-friendly games pose practically no risk.

"We intend to deal with them in a very simple way -- by letting the developer self-rate them with our doing subsequent random checks," he says. "Generally speaking, if you can successfully devise a good definition of casual games -- and we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of games that don't offend anybody -- unless there's abuse or somebody makes a mistake, what does it achieve by having us doing the rating?"

But in the United States, the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) assigns ratings to casual games as well as to retail and online games. Developers of these casual games, many of whom are small independents with very limited budgets, have complained they haven't the funds to pay for the rating service. While the ESRB doesn't disclose its rates, developers report that it hovers between $2,000 and $3,000, which can be the complete art budget for an indie game.

"I would highly recommend that casual developers inquire about our rates," says Patricia Vance, the ESRB's president. "In the past, we have accommodated companies with different fees for different types of games and different platforms. Going forward, we may make additional adjustments to our fees to accommodate companies with particular financial hardships."

Last year, the ESRB rated almost 1,300 games, and Vance believes it has the capacity to service as many additional games -- including casual games -- as is necessary.