Video Game Age Ratings 

Rating Pending best rating

PEGI not only has the classification, but also on the backside of every box are logos showing what is in the game. There are Bad Language, Discrimination, Drugs, Fear, Gambling, Sex, Violence and also my Favorit that should be on the front In-Game purchases

Croc on PS1 had all three K-A/E styles. The black label release had K-A, the Fox Interactive Greatest Hits had the pixelated E, and the Ubisoft Greatest Hits had the black E.

Mexico appears to have adopted its own ratings during the pandemic or around that time. It was so weird walking to the store and seeing something other than an imported esrb rating

I love the guy that says “PEGI 18” at the start of trailers

I love how the subtitles interpreted "m-rated game" as "inbred game"

I find the 14+ rating in Brazil really useful, some stuff is to light for 16 but too heavy for 12, like the Uncharted games

8:40 a funny rating gap for me has always been A Hat in Time. In North America, the game is rated T for violence and blood while in Europe it has a 7 rating.

My problem with the rating systems are just how inconsistent they are. There are games where you cut people in half that are rated pegi 16, and games that have pretty much no gore except for a little blood that are rated 18. And there are games rated e/3+ that have lootboxes , which is pretty much just gambling. I think they should rate each category like gore, swearing, gambling etc from 1-10 to help people weed out the games that have a lot of the content that they personally are not comfortable with. The current systems are just very inconsistent and misleading.

Wasn't expecting you to talk about the Brazilian rating system, pretty nice surprise! I don't think I ever saw a videogame with one of those, most of them just use the ESRB, since they are usually imported (from the US), specially if you're talking Nintendo.

PEGI is just substantially more hardcore with gambling than the ESRB is. For reference, Trails from Zero is a game you outlined as T for Teen/PEGI 18. The ESRB Page for the game references >Cries of pain, gunfire >Female characters with deep cleavage, lines referencing said cleavage >A fictional drug crucial to the game's plot, described as "the real serious kind", which is also shown to leave people unconscious >A casino where you can use ingame currency to play blackjack, poker, and slots >uses of the words Bullshit and Ass The PEGI page just mentions that the game teaches and encourages playing blackjack and poker. Nothing else.

I think PEGI has a good system and I like how they have logos for what is included (drugs, violence etc.) but I do think a numbering system could make it more clear. A logo with a small number from 1-10 would make it easier to know if a game is fine for your kids even if it has "bad" things in it.

I found it always weird how videogame age ratings appear to be way more strict compared to movies and tv series. Many tv series with a lot of violence, blood and drugs often only get a 12+ rating in my country but videogames almost always get a 16 or 18 rating. Even racing games usually get a 12+ rating which doesn't make any sense to me. Why should a 11 year old kid not be allowed to drive a car in a videogame? You can't even be violent because there are no pedestriabs in those racing games.

I can’t believe he didn’t mention when Miitopia got an 18+ rating in Russia because of same-sex relationships

Its worth noting that some countries like Russia rate some games drastically differently due to their more strict and oppressive LGBTQ+ laws. E.g. Miitopia is rated 18+ in Russia, but PEGI 7 here in the UK, presumably due to the high-level relationships Miis can obtain with each other suggesting romance

The USK here in Germany is trigger happy with banning games but they’re relaxed with giving explicit games a low rating. For example: Persona 4, which is rated M in the USA, is only 12+ in Germany.

Another notable thing about the Australian rating system is that for a long time, they refused to classify any games as R18+, because I guess games are for kids and so can't be for adults? This led to some games being refused sale on absolutely oversensitive grounds, but also frankly led to a lot of games being under-rated as MA15+ because banning them would have gotten bad press, like GTA IV.

Whoa, I was not expecting you to cover the Brazilian Rating System. Classificação Indicativa translates to "Indicative Classification" and for games their are automatic, each of them relating to one from the ESRB

Some thoughts of mine: -Older T-rated games seem to be able to get away with much more than modern T-rated games, simply because the graphics were less polished. Look at Weaponlord's finishing moves for example and you'd see there is no way that would be allowed at a T-rating if the graphics were 3D. -The game Crime Scene on the Nintendo DS seems to have the biggest disparity between ESRB and PEGI, as the former rated it M while the latter rated it 7. Worth noting that PEGI in its early days seemed to allow much worse content at the lower ratings. For example, 2005 Altered Beast getting a 12 even though you can cut enemies in half or decapitate them and there are grisly body horror images. -The BBFC film ratings board in the UK used to rate video games prior to July 2012. They didn't rate every game, admittedly. Comparing them to the ESRB and PEGI leads to many interesting results, such as how Mass Effect 1, Dragon's Dogma and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, all rated M by ESRB and 18 by PEGI were rated 12 by the BBFC instead. -The Australian ratings board originally didn't use the R18 rating for games, prior to late 2012 (don't remember the exact month, but Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge was the first game to get an R18). This was a factor in why so many games got banned or censored.

Brazilian here. The "Classificação Indicativa" is the same that is used for TV shows. They started using it on games around 2013. Games would often come with a sticker or a cardboard box with the brazilian rating on top of the original box, as up until that point we used the ERSB rating from USA. I'm not sure how it was before the ERAB here, because the Classificação Indicativa in TV shows wasn't a thing before mid 2000's. At least this incarnation of the rating. Only recently with some major PS4, PS5 and Xbox games games are printed with our rating on their original boxes. Switch retail games aren't officially sold here, instead Nintendo sells gift cards with the download codes. Not sure if any game has been banned here. I remember there has been talks about banning GTA Vice City when it came out, the whole videogame are evil witch hunt. But you can still buy GTA games in all other platforms. Also, one big box dept store near my house had an original copy of the PS2 version of Manhunt 1 for years.

The Pokemon Red and Blue rerelease got a PEGI 18+ for a time because of the gambling corner while it got an E for Everyone in the US

🇧🇷 As a Brazillian, i was not expecting our rating system appear here, i'm happy about this 🇧🇷

Prior to PEGI the UK went 3, 7, 12, 15 and 18. We still use TBC (To be Confirmed) when games are listed on the market while in development.

In Ireland, for years when I found a game in a store, it was a coin flip whether it was the PEGI age rating or the British age rating, the BBFC. I got away with playing call of duty World at war when I was younger because the box had the UK rating of 15+, but I only discovered recently that the PEGI rating was 18+ for the same game and I wasn't allowed play those games at the time. Just thought I'd share how it seemed for ages that we could have a game that could have 2 different age ratings on a shelf next to each other.

One of the most interesting age ratings for a game I recall is Pokémon Red and Blue. The original Gameboy games had the ESRB rate them as E and PEGI rate them as 3. When they where rereleased on the 3DS Virtual Console though PEGI increased it to 12 due to it having the Celadon Game Corner. It’s the main reason most future games no longer have a Game Corner, even the Ruby and Sapphire remakes got rid of it

Miitopias rating is super interesting. In America it got E for everyone the lowest rating available. In Russia it got an 18+ rating. It got 18+ because the game features same sex couples and Nintendo refused to censor the feature. Good on Nintendo for staying true to their values.

Parents should be aware of Parental Controls in online storefronts. We all know that video of Bowser being a responsible parent, but I'm pretty sure as early as the Wii, Nintendo had a Parental Control feature to require a password when buying games above a certain ESRB rating. So the gift card loophole shouldn't be a huge worry if you're parenting properly

I have a fond memory of needing to get my dad to call Nintendo customer service because the 5th ace attourney game was rated M among the rest of the series at T, and my 3ds account age was too young to buy it

I have the cartridge for the pixel e for everyone rating for Donkey Kong Land 2. So I can confirm it's real.

I am obsessed with age ratings and even expecting knowing most, if not all of the info on it, I entered directly to it to see your take on informing people about it and I think you did an outstanding job on explaining everything and giving fun facts.I even learned stuff I didn't knew like the last Ao game or the fact that Rating Oending possibly mature exists. Awesome coverage and really entertaining, it's always funmy to see how the actual gamers know more about this than the parents who are who should csre

Here in Brazil we use the same parental rating system (Sistema de Classificação Indicativa) on everything, from games to movies, TV series, TV shows and even streaming services content. The only exceptions are books, comics and manga

Crazy to imagine that a certain early 90s violent video games, got them to bring up the rating systems on every game they release. Adults Only is still one of the most rare rating system in video games.

As a dutch person (netherlands is in europe) I remember being young and when seeing a Pegi 18 Rating me and other kids would be very excited about that game, because if it got that rating we would really want to play it. lol So PEGI 18 was basically the opposite of a death sentence, it was a mark of approval

I got curious and went to look my PS2 games for the ratings and died after seeing GTA: San Andreas with the pixelated E for everyone on the CD XDD

Shower thoughts: We live in a world where gta is a kids game and candy crush is an adult game

Lol that last point was hella relatable. It's how I was able to play a shit ton of M rated games in my teens. I remember playing them with a single earbud, that way I could listen to the game and hear any footsteps approaching my closed door.

I remember in Chile during late 2010's they made a weird experiment, using (horrid but fortunately easy to throw away) paper labels saying TE (All audiences), +8, +14 and +18 and a generic description of the rating, the same ratings used in film. And Mexico started using their own ratings print on the label saying A, B, C and D replying their own film ratings (and their icons look so... "graphic design is my passion") In 2022 Chile said "Screw it, we're gonna stick with ESRB", thank God

for some reason when I got paper mario the origami king for my birthday, I got the PEGI rating system instead of the esrb system, this copy sort of felt special to me for some reason

I remember when HGSS was at risk of getting a higher age rating because of the Game Center. Also, congrats on 50K!

The E10 rating basically feels like a rating for hockey games at this point lmao

The Australian Classifications for video games actually used to have another version before 2005, before they were changed to be the same as movies. They were just white squares with the rating in bold black text, and the Australian Coat of arms at the top. They were: G G10+ M15+ MA15+

Oh, here’s a bonus fact about the Australian ratings… they didn’t used to be exactly the same. The PG rating was only implemented around 2004. Prior to that, Australia used to have G8+, which served the same function. But now they’ve been standardised to match the film ratings

one weird instance of different rating systems giving a game a wildly different rating is with the game, Deponia: The Complete Journey. It is rated 6 by the USK, 12 by PEGI, and Mature by the ESRB.

I remember my dad buying me The Sims: Superstar when I was a child. Online now it has the game is 7+ but I definitely remember it being 12+ rated. The person behind the counter at PC World asked me to step to the side in order to explain the content in the game to my dad (I was definitely too young to know what "WooHoo" was alluding to).

I'm surprised you didn't mention the AV15+ classification for Australia. It was used specifically for violent content (adult violence) and I remember my first time ever seeing it on TV. I have no idea what movie it was and it was the only time I ever saw it. The AV15+ classification was merged with the MA15+ rating in 2015 and the 'strong violence' sub-text was put in place of it.

You forgot to mention prior to PEGI. We actually used the ELSPA rating in EU countries (mainly UK) which was basically used from the SNES to PS1 era of games which rated from 3+, 11+, 15+ to 18+. Especially if you collected PAL releases of games back then. Heck, at one point in the UK specifically, they used BBFC rating for some games before the creation of PEGI. If you checked from PAL games prior to 2003. You would see that rating would be present on those releases. So, I think PEGI was basically created to mainstream version those rating systems.

Its kinda funny that Night trap and mortal kombat were the games that made people think its a problem, while back in the 80s there was Chiller and Splatterhouse which I would say is way more violent and gory, though the age rating on games was not a thing back then. I love that on splatterhouse there is a text on the turbografx16 cover that says ''The horrifying theme of this game may be inappropriate for young children...and cowards.'' Also many movies and games had differences which country it was in. Like I own movies which has both 18+ and 15+ on the age rating depending which country you are in. Probably because the neighboring country has a higher age rating compared to the one you're in, but its funny seeing mutiple age ratings on the same disc. Seeing how the countries takes ''recommened age rating'' differently. Shadow the hedgehog is 10+ in usa and 12+ in europe. Also Ratchet and Clank is 3+ in europe while in USA its teen.

Fun fact about Brazil's rating: I don't know if still is like this, but there was a time that sexual non-explicit short scenes would be for 14, sexual non-explicit long scenes would be for 16, and all the explicit and pornographic scenes would be for 18. However, if the sexual scene was a homossexual one, it didn't matter how long and explicit it was, it would jump straight to 18. I think it also applied to gay kisses with no sexual tension at all, but I'm not sure.

As a portuguese, I actually didn't know we had some unique ratings, which prompted me to check my PS4 games and got this: Rated 4: PES 2016 Gran Turismo Sport Rated 6: Minecraft Ratchet and Clank Kinda interesting how I'd never noticed that

As an Australian, I have never heard of RC! Congrats on teaching me something new about my country lol Random trivia for some reason : can you guess the only thing that has two different age ratings at the same time in Australia?

11:53 This rating is in Poland too, I think this appeared since 2010 (But it looks kinda different), or something like that, when I was a young kid I have seen videos with yellow triangle and 12 in it

Here in Australia we have the OFLC ratings and they’re great. They’re applied for movies, tv and games and they’re clear as day, green G, yellow PG, blue M, red MA-15+, black R-18+/X-18+ and on the boxes of the game or DVD/Blu-ray there’s the reason it’s rated like that, a PG game might have “mild cartoon violence, game experience may change online”, for example

03:26 my man's got one of the all time greats right there

Something weird about games in the UK is that while most games use the PEGI system there’s the occasional few that use our film ratings instead. It’s not even random small games or games based on films either, some of the games I own that do it include The Orange Box, Bioshock, GTA 4, Max Payne and the entire PS3 Uncharted trilogy, and there’s plenty more that I see being sold in stores. I’ve also noticed it’s only ever 6th and 7th gen games in my experience (although I do remember seeing a Switch game with a PG rating on it which looked really weird). Even weirder is the fact that some prints of games will have a standard PEGI rating and others of the same game will have the film rating instead. I’ve also noticed that (aside from the Switch game I mentioned earlier and one other Wii game I once saw) it’s pretty much always mature games. The games I own with film ratings on them are all 15s or 18s according to the film board. The last weird thing I’ve noticed about them is that unlike games rated using the PEGI system, games using our film ratings have the rating on the spine as well as the front and back for some reason. I’ve looked high and low for a reason as to why some games are rated this way over here, but I can’t find it.

8:30 For PEGI Rating: I read something for the launch of the Pokémon Games on the 3DS that there was a new law that all games that feature gambling have to be rated for adults. That's why the Pokémon Games were given the rating 12 as a kind of compromise.

What I always found interesting was that there almost certainly must be differences between what each rating system considers okay for certain age groups. From what I understand, things that are okay in some places can be considered problematic in others, and hence those places wouldn't grant approval for the same age groups. It's not even a matter of questionable choices every time, as even when the standards are enforced correctly there's still disagreements between rating systems. This must drive devs/publishers trying to aim for specific age groups rather crazy if they aim for international releases.

I remember seeing the E-c rating when i was 13 in 2018 During the 2017-2018 School year

You forgot to mention that around the era of the PS2/DS we used to have the PEGI plus rating (3+, 7+, 12+, 16+ and 18+) but we no longer used them and i don't remember why we used them

You went into a lot of detail into ESRB, while glossed over interesting things about PEGI. One thing about PEGI, unlike every other system you listed, is that it's language-independent. ESRB is English, CERO is Japanese, USK is German, but PEGI has no language. This is why all rating are numbers only, because numbers are universal, and why that special rating is just ! because it's not any language. The content ratings, which you didn't even show, are also just symbols. These are just symbols because they aren't language. You can read up about these symbols in your own language, and then you can know what these means regardless of what language the box is in. You can therefore purchase games in Spain and still understand the PEGI system. I just want to imagine a game, with the cover translated to English, German and Dutch to be like. Instead of 18 it would be A for Adults, E for Erwachsene, V for Volwassen. Then trying to buy a game in Poland having it rated N for Nastoletni and having no idea what age that is.

Also in Mexico 🇲🇽 uses his own game rating called “Sistema Mexicano de Equivalencias de Clasificación de Contenidos de Videojuegos/SMECCV” in english “Mexican System of Equivalences for Video Game Content Classification”

was hoping to see the arcade classifications here. I love the color coded stickers and how instead of numbers or letters, everything has to be written out (life-like violence strong, for example)

As a european i am kinda weirded out by the american system

God is PEGI nostalgic, i remember as a kid seeing the new cool "mature" game, and watching the trailer on youtube, and the first thing i hear is "PEGI 18". I got chills everytime i heard it.

for the pegi and esrb discrepencies: PAL territories have much harsher laws against gambling of any kind. Even fake gambling or gatcha. even stuff like the game corner in pokemon just everything and anythign with gambling typically gets a much higher rating in PEGI

The Switch version of Miitopia got an 18+ rating in Russia because it's possible for two characters of the same sex to be soulmates in the game

I remember hearing about the E10+ from ESRB, where Burnout 3 got a T rating, since E10+ wasn't thing back then, then Burnout Revenge, which takes on a grittier aesthetic and a greater emphasis on taking revenge and more reckless driving, is E10+ compared to the tamer Burnout 3.

me, a European, has seen a couple of pegi 17 ratings.

Perhaps a weird take, but I sorta like the ESRB system? They're pretty context-based when it comes to reviewing, so for example a game with a kid-friendly artstyle and a non-explicit plot isn't going to get a T only because say, a character says "suicide" once (yeah I'm thinking of Professor Layton). Their little sticker is also as non-intrusive as possible, so you don't get the entire cover art ruined like the USK in Germany. And IMO it's telling that people's biggest beef with them is still something that happened around 15 years ago (the Elder Scrolls IV rating change, which yeah it was totally on them). There IS the more recent lootbox controversy, but they're only one piece of the problem and most responsibility should actually be taken by legislators IMO.

thank you for not ignoring australia

It's crazy how 17 year olds aren't ready to play some games that 18 year olds can 😂

An interesting note: Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics for Nintendo Switch got an E-rating in the US/Canada and an A (全年齢) rating in Japan; however, in South Korea, only adults who verified their Nintendo accounts with their government identification can purchase this game off Nintendo eShop. However, one can use a Japan shopping proxy service to buy a Japanese cartridge of the game and have it sent to South Korea, effectively bypassing the age restriction.

Games clasified as teen in usa and pegi 18 in europe are mostly games that contain money games such as casino

As an Australian and seeing the other rating systems, I think I prefer ours the most due to the colour coding, letter systems and occasionally number as well.

Mexico made this decade their own rating system for the Moms than don't know what the M on their children games mean. But it's kinda weird, some releases like Nintendo ones have it printed in the cover art while other games only have a big ass sticker over the plastic covering the ordinary ESRB rating. The rating is similar to CERO and PEGI having letters with colors (A, B, C, that)

I think the rating system actually made games better cause most were for everyone already n it was rare to have adult games, but the rating systems let people make any type of game and make it good (:

Personally wouldn’t say Pegi 18 is the same as the esrb’s Adult only, I’d say it’s more like the M rating From my experience it feels as if Pegi 16 is used more as a middle ground for games that don’t quite fit either 12 or 18 ( for example bayonetta 1 is 18 while 2 is 16) This does lead to things such as the entire halo series being 16 besides halo wars 2 Even with all the more graphic things in the 1st 3 games it’s rated the same as the relatively tame things in 5 and infinite. On a related note some games in the UK got rated by the BBFC (the British Board of film classification) leading to games like halo 3 getting a 15 rating but funnily enough Mass effect 1 getting a 12 rating

I like how you and rocket sloth both made videos about game age ratings on the same day

When I was repalying Mega Man X4 for my review marathing for it, I found it funny that it was KA rated when you have to remember: that's the MOST DARKEST game in the entire franchise. I alos like how they changed that specific rating with E and E10 which we know today.

Pokémon was almost 18+ rating once

the "classificação indicativa" is usually only seen on tv or movies, considering out of like 50 games i have physically, only one of them uses that system (it has an L for "livre" :D)

One thing that's neat about PEGI is that it's actually color coded and overall a bit more accurate & useful than the ESRB (Arbitrary age numbers aside): Green is basically Everyone Yellow is Teen Red is Adults 3+ is a light E rating while 7+ is a heavy one Same goes for 12+ being a light T while 16+ is a heavy T Useful since T games differ a lot on the ESRB. Games like Infamous, Uncharted, Mercenaries, Bully etc. push the T rating pretty hard but aren't quite M worthy. Same goes for games like Halo which only slightly edge towards M and are given the more appropriate 16+ with PEGI.

Fun fact: Peak Entertainment Casino deliberately seeked out the ESRB rating to make a statement about responsible gambling.

"If gambling with real money is why AO was applied to that casino game, there's a lot of games that should be AO.

With the Australian Rating system, the R18+ rating was also only reserved for TV and Film until 2013. A few games that would have otherwise been rated R18+ were infamously banned in Australia before the rating was introduced to games, I think L4D2 was one of them. The ACB also seems to take implications and depictions of sexual violence pretty seriously. Infamously one of the Atelier games, Atelier Rorona Plus, which is rated pretty low (B in Japan, 12+ in Europe, T in the US) in other countries is rated R18 here. I haven't played the game myself but it's because of something that was humorously implied?? This is even weirder because the original non-remastered version of the game is rated PG lol

Fun fact: When the Gen 1 Pokémon games were re-released on the 3DS, their PEGI rating jumped from 3+ to 12+. The reason for this? Over the years, PEGI had decided to get stricter with simulated gambling, to where any game that contains it can't be rated lower than 12+. And since the games had a slot machine minigame, re-releasing them required their rating to be updated. This is the same reason why HeartGold & SoulSilver replaced the slot machines with the Voltorb Flip minigame, before Gen 5 onwards opted instead to just ditch the concept of the Game Corner entirely. The ESRB rating remained at E.

I have some old PAL PlayStation 1 and I've seen ELSPA ratings on them, and I literally do not know anything about them, I found basically no information on them other than it was a predecessor to PEGI. If you're able to find some more information, I'd love it if you'd make another video on age ratings ngl, especially with some messed up stuff (e.g. New Super Mario Bros being rated PEGI 3 originally, and later being rated PEGI 12 on the Wii U VC purely because of minigames like Luigi's Poker).

for future note, "Classificação Indicativa" is literally just "Indicative Classification", no formal name or anything, quite intuitive

i was always a bit worried on my copy of smash brawl being teen rated for a long time idk if it actually happen but i have a memory of my mom questioning me a bit until she saw was mostly Nintendo characters maybe my mind putting tricks on me but i was still woriried about that for awhile

11:22 Classificação Indicativa "Cla see fee ca soun, een gee ka chee va" Literally means Indicative Classification Not needed but if anyone's interested

About the Brazilian Rating System, 14+ rating is when a film or a game have some deeper stuff about violence, sexual content, and drugs, like prejudice, crude language, and references to the use of drugs, but not as deep as the 16+ and 18+ classics, which involve much darker themes. And the "ER", which is "Especially recommended for children and teenagers" is for films and TV program that doesn't contain any inappropriate contents, but it may be better understood by children older than 9 years of age and teenagers. I guess this rating got obsolete because not only is so rare to find something that isn't inappropriate in some films and TV, but also it was completely redundant comparedwith the rest of the ratings. I never saw any show or film with the "ER" rating placed in my country.

This is an very good video explaining about these video game ratings just like the movie ratings and the tv ratings.

13:33 Don't expose me like that.

Before PEGI, there used to be ELSPA. And the first age rated game was "Dracula" on the ZX Spectrum.

An oddity is that the UK kind of has two ratings systems. Some games have PEGI ratings, but tons of my games have a British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) on the cover instead of a PEGI rating. I have no idea why, but the majority of my PS3 games are BBFC while the bulk of my PS4 games are PEGI so maybe it was a point-in-time thing? I don't think I have any games that have both a BBFC and PEGI rating, but I'm curious to check through my collection now.

Age ratings in Australia are so big that it makes u look at them instead of the box art

There was this game that was rated E on front and back but was an error, it was actually M rated.

The BBFC actually used to rate games in the UK and they started it all the way back in the 80s with a Dracula text adventure game.

My issue with rating systems is how they differ in countries. Let's take a look at NFSMW 2005, in the US, it has a T rating (for some reason). Here in Australia, a literal newborn can play it because it's rated G for general audiences. I assume PEGI is the same as well, being rated 3+

The UK used to use PEGI but eventually started to use the BBFC rating system (used for films) in around about 2006 I think because I remember trying to buy From Russia With Love (the first game I ever saw with a BBFC rating rather than PEGI) that was a 15 (as I was at the time) and the shop assistant initially refused to sell it to me because I was under 16 but when I pointed out the rating said 15, he acquiesced and sold it to me.

According to PEGI every game is innapropiate for a 2 year old. :|