US regulator won't follow Europe's lead and stick higher age ratings on games with loot boxes and daily quests, since it might confuse parents

Also, PEGI sound like they'll be re-examining how they rate some established live service games

Last week, the folks behind PEGI (Pan European Game Information) - the age rating system used for games in Europe outside of Germany - announced plans to update their age rating criteria with four new categories. Games which feature the likes of loot boxes, NFTs, or daily quests designed to push players into coming back because otherwise they'll miss out will automatically be given higher ratings. The ratings board's US equvivalent, the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board), have now revealed that they won't be following suit at least for now, because they're concerned parents could end up scratching their heads.

"ESRB’s research indicates that parents want upfront notice about features like online communications and the ability to spend real money on in-game purchases, but that it could be confusing if non-content related features influence rating category assignments," a spokesperson for the American ratings folks told The Game Business. "As such, there are currently no plans for ESRB to allow any factors outside of the content and context of a game to influence the age rating assignment."

PEGI director Dirk Bosmans said in a response that the European regulators are "conscious of the concerns that ESRB voices" as the Americans stick to a more traditional ratings system. "You do want to inform [parents] both about the content, and the context, of video games," he acknowledged. "But by integrating them both into an age rating, you have to be mindful that you may not be able to give all the levels of detail that you gave beforehand. This is a difficult exercise." Bosmans added that PEGI's changes have taken inspiration from a "similar approach" the German ratings board - the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle - have recently instituted.

Meanwhile, the European raters also painted a bit more of a picture regarding how their new categories, set to be applied to new releases from June this year, might affect older online games which still boast big audiences. "We will be looking at some legacy products," Bosmans said, arguing that "leaving legacy live service games entirely untouched would not work out well in the long term despite going back and fiddling with existing games typically being a ratings no-no.

"We need to give ourselves the time to find the proper parameters, because we introduced four new categories...can we do all of them? There are lots of games out there and a lot of them are constantly being updated," he continued. "We cannot continuously check our back catalogue. But we’ve been tracking the presence of in-game purchases and paid random items for the last seven years, that gives us a very interesting database." That said, the director said PEGI don't keep data on which games have daily quest mechanics, so policing that retroactively would be "incredibly difficult".

It sounds like the complete scope of the incoming rules is still being worked out in some areas, but hopefully that ends up resolved in a fashion that doesn't confuse folks wondering what to buy their weans.