Nordic Game 2007
PEGI, the European game rating system goes onlineAccording to Per Strömbäck from Spelplan, the U.S. is in a league of its own with publicity-hounding game violence alarmists like Jack Thompson. Some countries like France and Germany aren't that much behind, though, at least in legal restrictions: in Germany, you can't even show blood in a game (hence most publishers release a special edition for the German market with green blood). Jürgen Bänsch, who was at Nordic Game 2007 to promote the EU's PEGI game rating system, says that the most important reason why game developers and publishers should embrace the EU-wide system is to avoid countries setting up their own age rating systems for games. 
Jürgen Bänsch explains about PEGI
Bänsch was the main speaker at a trade seminar for PEGI, where the main emphasis was on a new online rating initiative, PEGI Online. PEGI Online is an extension to the normal PEGI ratings, and its aim is to inform parents about the possibly harmful exposure in online play as well as promote a responsible online game culture among game developers. So far, unfortunately, PEGI Online does little other than inform: there is no concrete information on the PEGI Online website to for parents to decide if a specific game is potentially harmful for their children, and the information it gives on different categories of online gaming gives only a vague idea of the risks involved with each particular category or genre. PEGI Online's two-year funding ends in August, so hopefully they'll get more features online and ensure continuity for their very laudable effort. Mr. Bänsch had statistics from Nielsen Research's studies into PEGI ratings in 2004 and 2007, and they showed some promising developments. First of all, only 4% of all rated games were rated PEGI 18+ (roughly the same as ESRB's Adults Only rating), and almost 50% were rated 3+ (ESRB rating Early Childhood). The PEGI system was widely recognized, and 81% of parents had used PEGI ratings as reference when picking games. However, only around half of the respondents felt that they had received relevant information from PEGI ratings. There's more work to be done, but PEGI and its Online initiative are great attempts at educating consumers and creating a code of conduct for developers and publishers.
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