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EU Gives Video Game Industry Two Years to Improve Ratings System

by Les Thomas - April 24, 2008, 11:26 pm EDT
Total comments: 4 Source: Reuters

The European Union is demanding the video game industry of Europe better protect children from violent images.

On Tuesday, the European Union warned video game makers and retailers they have two years to come up with a widely accepted industry code of conduct to better protect children from violent images. PEGI, an age rating system remarkably similar to the American ESRB ratings, is already in place in Great Britain and most of Europe.

So what is the EU actually proposing? They want an ad campaign launched that will make the current age rating system more known to parents and the public. And while the EU acknowledged there is no conclusive proof that violent video games promote violence, they cited cases of teenage school shootings and said: "We want to work in this environment on a precautionary principle." What form the advocacy campaign will take to "protect children from video games" is up for speculation. Continued EU Consumer Protection Czar Meglena Kuneva, "When children go out to play today they enter the world of joysticks. We are not quite sure where they go and there is real anxiety from parents."

So far the government has stayed out of the planning and execution of these age rating systems and left these considerations to industry professionals. But the EU reminded these same professionals that the government has powers to propose legislation should they not act.

Talkback

King of TwitchApril 25, 2008

"They want an ad campaign launched that will make the current age rating system more known to parents and the public"

If they are too dumb to read the box that they are buying they shouldn't have kids in the first place! They should adopt China's birth policy instead of letting even more idiots procreate

PlugabugzApril 25, 2008

People are sheep, confirmed.

DAaaMan64April 25, 2008

Bull shit intervention. 

Bartman3010April 25, 2008

Well, its a known fact that European kids are the stupidest beings on earth with no sense of imagination whatsoever.


Well, okay not really. Its just politicians of any kind.

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