Less competition, more cooperation in ratings, says PEGI

The secretary general of European publisher body ISFE, Patrice Chazerand, has told GamesIndustry.biz that he believes people should stop thinking in terms of competition between PEGI and the BBFC when it comes to the question of age ratings.

Talking in an interview in which he unpacks his thoughts on last week's Byron Review, and what it means for the pan-European system, he explained that working together would benefit consumers more than competition would.

"I don't know if I'm being too visionary, but I think we should stop thinking in terms of competition and start thinking more in terms of cooperation," he said. "You've heard me say that if asked what my preference is, and what the industry has said, that PEGI would be the single ratings system, but as long as the government takes on board the Byron recommendations, you're confronted with a situation where you have to cooperate.

"I think it's a different logic to that of competition - I would say that productive cooperation, the one envisioned by Tanya Byron to better serve the interests of the UK, would be true cooperation - not competition.

"The UK public probably couldn't care less about the competition of two game ratings agencies - they care about getting the right information," he added.

Chazerand also feels that while the PEGI system is a sophisticated one that would be capable of rating games effectively for all, the increasing importance of online gaming is key in the future - and that PEGI may gain prominence again over time as a result.

"That's definitely a possibility, yes, just because the people behind PEGI know about games," he said. "They had this vision of implementing part of the PEGI code which was there from the beginning, but we had to find practical ways to cover online games, as soon as online games were becoming prevalent.

"PEGI Online was borne out of vision - this industry has a sense of responsibility and a vision, and we think that the uptake of online gaming will continue to grow, that the usefulness to provide the right information and assurances to parents will also keep growing.

"[But] to tell you that it will promote PEGI more than the BBFC is something I cannot really do - the PEGI Online code incorporates all the established European ratings systems, so it will have BBFC logos up there on the online gaming website as well."

The full interview with Patrice Chazerand is available now.