Parliament: 'Global Regulatory Future' Of Video Games?
Yowza, that sounds a bit ominous - but although the words "global regulatory future" might read like an Orwellian euphemism for total domination, they cropped up in the UK Parliament yesterday during a conversation about PEGI ratings and the political teacup-tempest that is RapeLay.
I won't begin to try and parse British politics (so our British readers don't have to suffer), but the relationship between PEGI and the future of video game regulations emerged during a discussion on the floor of Parliament between MP Mark Field and Siôn Simon (who bears the lengthily-titled office of Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport).
GamePolitics has a longer version of the conversation, but Siôn Simon connected the recent decision to abide by PEGI regulatory operations over the in-house BBFC to the potential emergence of a global standard that would do away with region-specific regulations entirely:
Mark Field: The Minister will know that Britain is a great leader in video and computer games, and while I take on board many of the concerns expressed by Keith Vaz, will the Minister recognise that this is a global industry, not simply a European one, and in so far as we are going to have the safeguards to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, we will clearly also need to have global regulation along those lines?Siôn Simon: The system of regulation for which we have opted--the PEGI system--is pan-European, and as such, we see it as the building block to moving towards a global regulatory future. The key principle is that the markings on games should make it clear to parents which games are suitable for adults and which are suitable and unsuitable for children and young children. Adults should be allowed to access adult content; children most certainly should not
Thoughts: simplicity in regulations and ratings is a great concept, in theory. In practice, in a world where Germany bans gore and the US bans genitals, global regulation seems more like a recipe for immediate dysfunction.
On the other hand, we have the promise of a single system that rates game content but allows for independent regional discretion over which types of content are appropriate for that locale. Would that make things easier or simply wrap more red tape around an already contentious process?
Talk to me.
In Parliament, Suggestion of "Global Regulatory Future" For Video Games [GamePolitics]
tiny dancer
Posted to Miscellany, Video Games on 21 July 2009
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: global regulatory future, parliament, pegi, ratings, video game ratings
I think the best overall "ratings" system is a combination of all the different rating systems out there. I think the best example of what I mean is the current TV ratings system. TV-MA means mature audiences .. but then below that it will have something like L, V .. meaning language and violence.
Basically what I think would work best is major categories for age brackets (Child, Teen, Adult, zOMG) with qualifiers after that describing WHY it is that rating (language, violence, fart jokes). That way, the super-committee that determines the game rating can slap on the label, then each region can block distribution simply by looking on the cover (sorry Portugal, no fart joke laden games for you).
I think thats probably the gist of what everyone is looking for. The big question is, who will form the committee to rate such games? Will it be some huge UN type thing, or will each country have their own group but using the same rules, slapping the label on before it can be imported/exported?