Regulatory Issues

On our second agenda we shall now be looking at Regulatory Issues. First off what is regulation? Regulation is a legal provision that creates or constrains a right, limits duties, or responsibility. The reason why games needed this ruling is because the games have now evolved a lot from back in the days, as more games become more violent, bloodily, and gory. Some games like films have even been banned from certain country, so for the gaming industry to prevent this from happening just like in films they've implemented a regulatory standard for games.  

The three most popular representative in the gaming industry are; TIGA, UKIE, ESA

TIGA (The Independent Game Association) is a non-profit trade association that represents the UK's gaming industry. They include “independent games developers, in-house publisher-owned developers, outsourcing companies, technology businesses and universities.”

UKIE (UK Interactive Entertainment) are the only trade bodies that are for the UK’s interactive entertainment industry. They support the interests and needs of a positive image for the video games and for the interactive entertainment industry.

ESA (Entertainment Software Association) the most popular trade association out of the three. They focus fighting against piracy and censorship; also they run E3 and support ESRB. Most of the top game publishers are a member of ESA. e.g. Capcom, Square Enix, Namco Bandai Games, THQ, Ubisoft, etc.

In the early days for the US games were rated by their producers and publishers, until in September 1994 when ESRB was created, for the American rating system.

ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) they are responsible for giving an overall age and content rating. E.g. alcohol, violence, sex, and language.

ESRB's rating system

In the UK all the ratings were done by BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and they were solely legal for rating video games. Then in the summer of 2012 PEGI replaced BBFC and became the sole system for age classification for video games for. Also from 1984 to 2009 due to a minor governmental law error the sale of an age restricted game wasn't illegal.

PEGI (Pan European Game Information) they are responsible for giving age and content ratings by logos and every game has to go through PEGI before any of it hits the stores.

PEGI's age rating

PEGI's content rating