Role of Relevant Regulatory Bodies P5 (d)

Role of Relevant Regulatory Bodies P5

Regulatory bodies are agencies run by the government e.g USK in Germany or by a public authority These bodies are founded to monitor some form of human activity and to come up with rules and guidelines within that area.    

There are few regulatory bodied within the games industry. Although there are several regulatory bodies that clearly label appropriate age rating of games and are done so with government backing. 

Due to fear from parents and society in general that games lead to violent children regulatory bodies have been set up to review the age rating of games to ensure that games are not sold to the inappropriate age range, preventing children from easily accessing gaming content that is considered too violent or mature. Laws in the UK and across the world have been put in place to ensure merchants do not sell games to children under the set age range of games. It they do so the merchant can be heavily fined or jailed depending on the country there in. These regulatory bodies also effect the games industry as they can reduce sales.

Games developers must ensure that there game has a set age range and that they stick to that throughout the games developments stage or they may get to the end of development and find their game is considered to violent or inappropriate for their originally intended audience. This could stop the game from being released perhaps lead to the age rating being changed, which may affect the amount of purchases.

PEGI:

The Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) aged rating system was founded to help parents within Europe to make decisions on the games they buy their children. It was made in 2003 to replace a number of nation age rating systems, making them all one united system.  The system is supported and used by all major consol manufactures. It is one of them most commonly used and favourite rating systems as it clearly labels any inappropriate games play.

ESRB:

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was the first regulatory body to be set up for the games industry. There where founded in 1994 with government backing, after the outrage of violence within games such as mortal combat and doom. Their job being to monitor and give appropriate age ratings for games within Canada and the United States. Their aim is to give appropriate age ratings and to ensure parents understand what is within the games their children are playing.   

How regulatory bodies affect Call of Duty:

As the Call of Duty series contains violent content not suitable for children the titles are always rated M (in USA) or 18 in the UK. This is because the games contain Violence, strong language, blood and sometimes gore.

The effect this has is a reduction in sales, as video games such as COD are mostly played by younger audiences. When shown in store these ratings are clearly displayed on the covers of the titles so to inform the buyer.

A large aspect of the Call of Duty franchise is the multiplayer content, which allows for interactions with other players in the form of voice communication, this could be seen as dangerous for younger children as they are speaking to strangers. PEGI and ESRB show that COD has this feature however is unable to rate it as it can vary.

Other impacts regulatory bodies can have is on the content of the game itself, due to laws in Germany that disallow any showing of the Nazi swastika Activision had to publish a German version of Call of Duty WAW that removed all swastikas and much of the violence.

BBFC

From 30 July 2012, and with a few limited exceptions, the responsibility for classifying video games falls to the Video Standards Council (VSC), applying the PEGI system. 

The BBFC will continue to classify all games featuring strong pornographic (R18-level) content and ancillary games attached to a wider, primarily linear submission.  The BBFC will also continue to classify all non-game linear content on a game disc, such as trailers and featurettes.