Skip to main content

Video Games: Classification Schemes

Question for Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

UIN 3440, tabled on 6 July 2017

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the effect of downloading of additional content of videogames that will potentially change the age classification of the game.

Answered on

11 July 2017

The Pegi classification system for video games considers the potential for additional downloadable content to diverge from the age rating of the initial product. Under the terms of the certificates issued for games by the UK’s Games Rating Authority (GRA), where subsequent content offered for download is not appropriate to the Pegi rating issued, the new material must be notified to the GRA so they can review and award a new Pegi rating.

Video games publishers failing to comply face fines from Pegi of up to 500,000 Euros.

In the last 12 months the GRA has received seven submissions of additional downloadable content from games publishers. They considered that none of these needed a higher Pegi rating than the original game.

Named day
Named day questions only occur in the House of Commons. The MP tabling the question specifies the date on which they should receive an answer. MPs may not table more than five named day questions on a single day.