Purchases of in-game content: games with time-limited or quantity-limited offers will be classified with a PEGI 12, games with NFTs or blockchain-related mechanisms will be PEGI 18.
Paid random items: the default rating will be PEGI 16 if the game contains paid random items (and in some cases they can be a PEGI 18).
Play-by-appointment: mechanisms that reward returning to the game (e.g. daily quests) will get a PEGI 7. If these mechanisms punish players for not returning (e.g. by losing content or reducing progress) they will become PEGI 12.
Safe online gameplay: if games contain entirely unrestricted communication features (e.g. no blocking or reporting), they will be PEGI 18.
That wording sounds really unspecific. I wonder how the first two poins will be interpreted with regard to games where the paying for gambling tokens involves multiple steps of conversion. In particular, Genshin Impact and similar games, where the paid currency first has to be converted (at a 1:1 rate) to a general currency that can be earned by engaging with the completely free progression systems.
Play-by-appointment is the gateway to all the other anti features, and not being about to focus on studying because you’re worried about your dailies shouldn’t be something 12 year olds (or anyone, really) are exposed to
See, I have a real issue with the “12 year olds (or anyone, really)” bit there in juxtaposition to all the pushback on OS age verification.
The gaming community has spent the past decade and change doing the exact same moral panic routine that anti-game violence crusaders did in the 90s and are in the process of finding out why it’s a bad idea.
Age ratings and content warnings? Awesome. Gating content and design concepts on moral grounds? Not that.
I mean, for one thing, that’s a misrepresentation. You don’t need a behavioral scientist to figure out that “come back tomorrow for another reward” is a good engagement tool. For another, it’s a misnomer, because that’s not a dark pattern, it’s a deliberate, out-in-the-open design that is transparent about how it works.
But do I think that people freaking out about engagement tools they don’t like while giving functionally similar ones they do like a pass is a moral panic?
100%, absolutely yes.
There’s a reason why the PEGI rep talking to Eurogamer clarifies that this specific wording would absolutely have unintended consequences and they’re limiting the age ratings impact and leaning on content descriptors instead:
“There was some discussion here,” he added. “Some people pointed out that these are features that make the game engaging and fun - this is enriching the game experience similar to a cliffhanger in a Netflix series. So we mostly want to inform parents about this, because there’s no reason why we should give Animal Crossing a very high rating. So this is going to stick to a PEGI 7 but it will have a descriptor that explains this. The exact language of the descriptors still needs to be figured out.”
So yes. Slippery slope, moral panic, will somebody thing of the children stuff.
As a third side to the discussion, I do have my reservations about age verification, but then I don’t mind such mechanics being banned completely. PEGI, to my mind, severely underplays the issues involved.
It’s extremely easy to cross the line between “oh, you’re back! Here’s something small and nice to set you for a good gaming session” and “oh no, you didn’t come to the game, now your weekly/monthly streak is gone and the main reward you wanted and all your friends have is now forever unattainable”.
Most games, unfortunately, opt for the latter, focusing on FOMO and driving anxiety as the key factor to force people to play. Games should be something unimportant, something that is there and waits for you to finish with what matters. Not a second job that it became for many.
…and yes, battle pass is also an engagement mechanic of a similar kind and needs to be eliminated for much the same reasons.
It doesn’t need to be too specific, in that PEGI actually reviews the products it rates. You get to send them a preview and then talk to them about the rating.
I also think some of the stuff Eurogamer is reporting is weird, or maybe PEGI is just not aware of some tools? For instance, null
A game will be able to reduce this PEGI rating to 7 if it contains in-game controls that allow you to turn spending off by default. As Bosmans noted, these systems don’t really exist yet, but the hope is this change will incentivise them to be developed.
Is not actually true. Many games do include turning spending off based on the user’s reported age or whether they’re on a child account (Nintendo and Sony both support this as a feature, I believe).
So there is some confusing stuff going on here, but it all seems mostly reasonable to me.
My trust in PEGI’s ability to properly review games has decreased significantly after Balatro got a PEGI-18 rating for some real horseshit reasons. This is a good direction, my concern is with the execution.
Myeh. I think they mostly do fine, but they’re certainly not perfect. These are reasonable, but some of the stuff they’re saying about it is factually incorrect, too (like I said, there ARE age-based commerce lockouts in games already despite their statements).
All they need to do to be functional is have a modicum of consistency and at least be reactive to feedback. The Balatro thing sucked, but they did correct it. Some of these changes seem to be specifically a reaction to the Balatro thing, in fact.
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Original article by PEGI: https://pegi.info/news/pegi-expands-age-rating-criteria-interactive-risk-categories
That wording sounds really unspecific. I wonder how the first two poins will be interpreted with regard to games where the paying for gambling tokens involves multiple steps of conversion. In particular, Genshin Impact and similar games, where the paid currency first has to be converted (at a 1:1 rate) to a general currency that can be earned by engaging with the completely free progression systems.
So if Pokémon Pocket was released after this revision, would it be labelled PEGI 16?
Play-by-appointment is the gateway to all the other anti features, and not being about to focus on studying because you’re worried about your dailies shouldn’t be something 12 year olds (or anyone, really) are exposed to
See, I have a real issue with the “12 year olds (or anyone, really)” bit there in juxtaposition to all the pushback on OS age verification.
The gaming community has spent the past decade and change doing the exact same moral panic routine that anti-game violence crusaders did in the 90s and are in the process of finding out why it’s a bad idea.
Age ratings and content warnings? Awesome. Gating content and design concepts on moral grounds? Not that.
You think that identifying dark patterns that are literally designed by psychologists to be as addictive as possible is moral panic?
Yes.
I mean, for one thing, that’s a misrepresentation. You don’t need a behavioral scientist to figure out that “come back tomorrow for another reward” is a good engagement tool. For another, it’s a misnomer, because that’s not a dark pattern, it’s a deliberate, out-in-the-open design that is transparent about how it works.
But do I think that people freaking out about engagement tools they don’t like while giving functionally similar ones they do like a pass is a moral panic?
100%, absolutely yes.
There’s a reason why the PEGI rep talking to Eurogamer clarifies that this specific wording would absolutely have unintended consequences and they’re limiting the age ratings impact and leaning on content descriptors instead:
So yes. Slippery slope, moral panic, will somebody thing of the children stuff.
As a third side to the discussion, I do have my reservations about age verification, but then I don’t mind such mechanics being banned completely. PEGI, to my mind, severely underplays the issues involved.
It’s extremely easy to cross the line between “oh, you’re back! Here’s something small and nice to set you for a good gaming session” and “oh no, you didn’t come to the game, now your weekly/monthly streak is gone and the main reward you wanted and all your friends have is now forever unattainable”.
Most games, unfortunately, opt for the latter, focusing on FOMO and driving anxiety as the key factor to force people to play. Games should be something unimportant, something that is there and waits for you to finish with what matters. Not a second job that it became for many.
…and yes, battle pass is also an engagement mechanic of a similar kind and needs to be eliminated for much the same reasons.
Patterns don’t have to be dark to be problematic.
Well, we will see what they do in practice. I think it’s a step in te right direction.
It doesn’t need to be too specific, in that PEGI actually reviews the products it rates. You get to send them a preview and then talk to them about the rating.
I also think some of the stuff Eurogamer is reporting is weird, or maybe PEGI is just not aware of some tools? For instance, null
Is not actually true. Many games do include turning spending off based on the user’s reported age or whether they’re on a child account (Nintendo and Sony both support this as a feature, I believe).
So there is some confusing stuff going on here, but it all seems mostly reasonable to me.
My trust in PEGI’s ability to properly review games has decreased significantly after Balatro got a PEGI-18 rating for some real horseshit reasons. This is a good direction, my concern is with the execution.
Isn’t the issue here that fifa fc should also be 18?
Myeh. I think they mostly do fine, but they’re certainly not perfect. These are reasonable, but some of the stuff they’re saying about it is factually incorrect, too (like I said, there ARE age-based commerce lockouts in games already despite their statements).
All they need to do to be functional is have a modicum of consistency and at least be reactive to feedback. The Balatro thing sucked, but they did correct it. Some of these changes seem to be specifically a reaction to the Balatro thing, in fact.
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