Unit 3

PEGI Essay


The Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) age rating system was established to help European parents make informed decisions on buying computer games. It was launched in spring 2003 and replaced a number of national age rating systems with a single system now used throughout most of Europe, in 30 countries (Austria Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia, Belgium, Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden, Cyprus, France, Israel, Malta, Romania, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovak Republic and the United Kingdom). A PEGI rating is very important because it shows whether the content within the film, video and computer games is relevant to the rating it has been given. The PEGI rating can help parents a lot to decide whether they want their children to play that game or not but sometimes they can look upon the PEGI rating if they feel their child is okay to play the game or watch the film or video

This is what the PEGI ratings look like and where one of them say ‘3’ this means 3 is the minimum age for the child to be to play this game. The PEGI rating that says ‘7’ probably isn’t a lot different to games rated ‘3’ but most of these games that are rating ‘7’ there is either a couple of scenes that could be frightening or there is an online mode which can be unfriendly at times. PEGI ‘12’ also means you have to be of age of 12 or higher to play this game and the reasons some games are 12 is because there could be some bad language which would be very mild or slight nudity.  The PEGI rating ‘16’ can be rated at this if there is sexual content in the game that could be seen in real life, if there are sexual scenes of this description the game has to be rating at a ‘16’ minimum. Also bad language in ‘16’ games is usually a bit more heavy and if a game contains any form of drugs the game will have to be rating at a minimum of ‘16’. The PEGI rating ‘18’ is the highest rating you can get. When the violence in the game is considered gross or specific gruesome violence the rating will have to be ‘18’. Gross violence is the most difficult to define since it can be very subjective in many cases. Violence, bad language, fears, drugs, sexual, discrimination, gambling and online gameplay with other people is what is used to rate games.

Millions and millions of people play computer games across the world. In the UK particularly 37% of the population between ages 16 and 49 class themselves as gamers. They say they either own or play a console, handheld gaming device or PC. These PEGI ratings aren’t always successful because parents buy children games that they are not old enough to play so these ratings aren’t always successful but a lot of parents do follow these ratings.

Grand Theft Auto is a controversial game. Grand Theft Auto is a PEGI rated 18 game and has almost every bad factor within it. It has sexual scenes, strong violence, gambling, Fear, drugs, discrimination and a lot of bad language. There is much controversy with this game because a lot of parents think it is extremely inappropriate game and a lot of people have complained about this game.

I will be talking about GTA and about how controversial it is.

Use of Torture

In the mission By The Book the player must torture a target, and the most controversial scene is Trevor pulling out the tortured man's tooth with pliers, which has been constantly dubbed, the most controversial scene in the entire series.

Accusations of Sexism

Some reviewers concluded that the game's depiction of women is misogynistic.Gamespot reviewer, Carolyn Petit, noted that women in the game were mostly treated and/or played as "strippers, prostitutes, long-suffering wives, humourless girlfriends and goofy, new-age feminists", and felt that the satirical representation of misogyny legitimises it. [43] Dave Cook of VG247 reinforced the sentiment that the female characters were constructed on stereotypes in an editorial: "They're either there to be rescued, shouted at, fucked, to be seen fucking, put up with, killed, heard prattling away like dullards on their mobile phones or shopping". [44] Responding to backlash about the critical views of women in the game, wider discussions opened up about the role of women in GTA V and the community defensiveness towards the criticism. However, other reviewers cited as the treatment of women as "stereotypical". Sam Houser, Rockstar Games co-founder, felt that the development team sometimes overlooked their portrayal of women in Grand Theft Auto games, but that the weight towards male characters "fit with the story we wanted to tell"

Use of drugs

GTA has a lot of use of drugs in the content of the game. It’s just used casually and is inappropriate. This doesn’t bring up much controversy because it’s used so casually.

ESRB

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings provide guidance about video games and apps so that consumers, especially parents, can make informed choices about the ones they deem suitable for their family.

Title: Grand Theft Auto V

Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360                                        

Rating:

Content Descriptors: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humour, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol, Online Interactions.

Rating Summary: In this open-world action game, players assume the role of three criminals whose storylines intersect within the fictional city of Los Santos. Players can switch between each character to follow his storyline.

Treatment

In this document all the ideas I come up with, for my own game will be broken up into key sections to define and analysis what they are, why I think I will use them, and how I will use them.

Idea 1: Heroes: Capture the Flag

Platform: PC

Genre: Strategy, multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA)

My target audience: This game with be rated at 16+, the reason this game will be a 16+ is because there is violence and the main reason is due to swearing that the heroes say.

Storyline: At the start of this game you will get to choose between 4 heroes, the first character is a warrior, this hero will have a very large health bar and not a very high amount of damage, and these are great for carrying a flag if they are with a priest which is the second hero to use spells that heal themselves and other heroes. They have spells to do damage but they aren’t much damage but they can heal themselves to make up for it. The third hero is a rogue. Rogues are really sneaky characters and they go in stealth, they attack from stealth and use melee attacks and attack really fast, these heroes do high damage and run really fast so they are good for carrying the flag but can die quite fast. The last hero is a warlock, these heroes cast spells and die really fast but they do more damage than any other hero in the game. These are mainly support heroes to help as a team. The objective is to get to the other teams base and grab their flag and capture it in your own base without them capturing yours. There are three lanes to travel down. The first team to reach 3 captures wins. If you die you have to wait 30 seconds to respawn again.

Idea 2: Now you see me

Platform: PC

Genre: Horror.

My target audience: This game will be rated 18+, the reason this game will be 18+ is because there is a lot of violence and there will be a lot of gore. The theme will also not be for people bellow 18.

Storyline: At the start you will be waking up in a hospital bed with wires everywhere and the idea of the game is to try and get out of the hospital and find your son. When the guy goes around corners there will be things there that jump out and creep him out but they will just be normal things like animals in bins and wires etc. Then on one of the scares there will be a little girl with blood squirting from her forehead and blood will get on his shirt then he will look at his shirt in an animation and then when he looks back up she will be gone but he can hear screaming and he has to find out where this little girl is because she knows where his son is.

Games Questionnaire

-1. Are you male or female?

Male□

Female□

O. How old are you?

0-5□

6-11□

12-17□

18-23□

24-30□

31-40□

41-50□

51+□

1. Do you play console games?

Yes□ No□

2. What genre of games to you play?

First Person Shooter□ Role Playing□ Driving□ Real Time Strategy□ Other□

3. How often do you play console games?

Never□ Rarely□ Sometimes□ Often□

4. How do you buy your games?

Online□ Store□ Friends□ Second hand□

5. What would be the maximum you would pay for a game?

£10□ £20□ £30□ £40□ £50□ £60□

6. Who do you play games consoles with?

Friends□ Family□ Solo□

7. Do you play games online?

Yes□ No□

8. Do you think games are improving at a fast rate or slow rate?

Fast rate□ Slow rate□

9. Do you prefer 1^st person or 3^rd person games?

10. Overall what do you think of gaming? 1-Lowest 10-Highest

Method	Qualitative or quantitative	What is it? Examples	Cost	Time	Comments
Secondary research	Quantitative Qualitative	Market research that's already compiled and organized for you. Examples of secondary information include reports and studies by government agencies, trade associations or other businesses within your industry.	Typically free of very low cost.	Short	Good start but doesn’t give enough detail and isn’t specific enough.
Survey	Quantitative	A survey is like a questionnaire and is the most common way to gather information.	Varies widely. Key costs include participant incentives, survey design and survey administration.	Medium	Good for measuring attitudes across a large population and for answering specific questions.
Focus groups	Qualitative	1.       a group of people assembled to participate in a discussion about a product before it is launched, or to provide feedback on a political campaign, television series, etc.	Medium. Key costs include focus group moderation and participant incentives.	Medium	Good for expletory research.
Interviews	Qualitative	An interview is when you meet someone face to face and ask questions on a specific topic. Such as applying for a job	Similar to focus groups but can be a lot cheaper depending on the audience and interviews.	Short-Medium	Good for going deep into specific topics and also good for expletory research.
Experiments	Quantitative	a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact.	Often the most expensive method.	Usually long	Used for scientifically testing specific hypothesis.
Observation	Qualitative	The action or process of closely observing or monitoring something or someone.	Medium. Relative to other options.	Medium	Good for assessing actual behaviour instead of self-reported behaviour.