Europe's game rating agency takes aim at in-app purchases, loot boxes, and 'unrestricted communication' with new 'interactive risk categories'

European game rating agency PEGI is about to make life more complicated for some game developers, as it plans to expand its system later this year with new "interactive risk categories" specifically targeting games with loot boxes, in-app purchases, or unmoderated in-game communications.

Videogame age rating systems were initially established over fears about the presence of sex and violence in games. But much has changed over the past 30-plus years, and these days the concerns are far more insidious: It turns out that Sub-Zero ripping out someone's spine isn't a big deal, but letting him add M. Bison's hat to his wardrobe for just $2.99—act now, because it's only available until the end of March!—well, that's a real problem.

PEGI ratings currently contain notifications of some of those elements when they're present in games, but these new categories will tie them explicitly to certain age ratings:

• Purchases of in-game content: games with time-limited or quantity-limited offers will be classified with a PEGI 12, games with NFTs or blockchain-related mechanisms will be PEGI 18.
• Paid random items: the default rating will be PEGI 16 if the game contains paid random items (and in some cases they can be a PEGI 18).
• Play-by-appointment: mechanisms that reward returning to the game (e.g. daily quests) will get a PEGI 7. If these mechanisms punish players for not returning (e.g. by losing content or reducing progress) they will become PEGI 12.
• Safe online gameplay: if games contain entirely unrestricted communication features (e.g. no blocking or reporting), they will be PEGI 18.

The expanded system could see age ratings for some games take a jump up: Eurogamer pointed out that Fortnite, for instance, is already rated PEGI 12 and so probably won't see any changes (although there will be additional "descriptors" applied to its rating), but the EA Sports FC games, which have previously been rated PEGI 3—"suitable for all ages"—will probably be bounced up to PEGI 16 because of randomized Ultimate Team card packs.

Some of the details are still being worked out. Regarding the play-by-appointment category, PEGI director general Dirk Bosmans told Eurogamer "there's no reason why we should give Animal Crossing a very high rating," so it will remain PEGI 7; a new descriptor to help inform parents of the system will be added, but "the exact language of the descriptors still needs to be figured out."

The new PEGI 18 default for games with unrestricted communications is also interesting: That will only be applied to games that don't offer any option to block text, voice, or other chat, which is relatively rare, and Bosmans said such games would be illegal to sell in the UK anyway because of the country's Online Safety Act. "So we don't expect to see many of these games," Bosman said. "This is more like a line in the sand. We need to make it clear to companies this is something you cannot do."

The ESRB, North America's game rating system, added an "In-Game Purchases" label to its own ratings in 2018, which doesn't seem to have done much to slow the rise of purchasable items in games. Whether PEGI's more aggressive approach will have any more success on that front remains to be seen: I'm not holding my breath, quite frankly, but it's worth a shot. PEGI's new age rating criteria are set to be implemented in June.