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Atari Announcement Strengthens Case For PEGI Age Ratings System |
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Written by Ben Hartland
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Tuesday, 23 September 2008 |
The case for the video games industry embracing PEGI (Pan-European Game Information) as the only effective age rating system gathered further momentum today following Atari’s announcement that 90 per cent of its output will be released online in a few years’ time. Atari CEO David Gardiner and President Phil Harrison stated in an interview with MCV, the trade newspaper, that the company increasingly favours online titles over the traditional retail model lending further weight to PEGI’s cause.
Following Atari’s recent deal with Namco Bandai and speaking in MCV,
Gardner said: “We’re taking the first steps here. In five years, Namco
Bandai will probably own the majority of it, it will no longer be our
responsibility and Atari will be just an online company – within five
years we’ll have 90 per cent online products.”
ELSPA (the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association)
is actively lobbying Government to embrace PEGI as the single games
ratings system and believes that the implementation of a single games
age ratings system in the UK is the only system with the power to
protect children online and offline.
Paul Jackson, Director General at ELSPA, said: “Atari’s decision to
shift retail emphasis to online further emphasises why the British
video game industry specifically favours the PEGI age ratings system.
Only PEGI fully assesses all games content. It is designed specifically
for interactive software. It understands games and their potential for
infinite variations. That’s why it is backed by the British games
industry.”
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