EU wades into video game row

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION is preparing to officially sanction the existing cinema-style classification system for video games, just as the anti-game lobby in the UK prepares to make demands for one.

The government indicated in leaks to newspapers last week that it wanted a cinema-style system to control video game violence. The leaks were made by Ministers who had read early copies of the Byron Review into video game violence, which is to be published in March.

A senior EC official told The INQUIRER that Vivianne Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, had commissioned her own review of the existing PEGI system that is already used to rate video games in 27 countries, including Britain.

Due for publication in April, after the Byron Review, its remit is to determine, "if PEGI is working effectively and has been taken up by member states," said the official.

"We have found that PEGI is working," he said.

The report will comment on how PEGI might be improved, drawing from submissions by the interior ministries of member states. One of these comments will consider which European countries do not punish retailers for selling adult computer games to children.

But it will stop short of recommending that PEGI be legally enforced. "We do not want to go in the direction of hard law," said the official. "Member states dictate that provisions in national law are sufficient".

The UK system uses PEGI to rate the majority of games, with producers being obliged by law to send games with a certain level of graphic violence for vetting by the British Board of Film Classification, the national censor. BBFC ratings are legally enforceable.

PEGI has been held up by the anti-game lobby as evidence that the system of classification is lax, even though the games they despise - such as Manhunt - are legally certified by the BBFC.

This might explain why Byron had, according to the EC official, been dismissive of PEGI in her review.

But he said: "Byron has in recent weeks been hearing representations from PEGI and now understands how important PEGI is from an EU dimension". µ