The Daily Populous Saturday March 21st, 2026 evening edition
Authored by eurogamer.net and submitted by renome

US age ratings body ESRB has said it won't follow PEGI's example in Europe and begin factoring in elements like paid random items when determining the age rating for a game.

To catch you up: PEGI announced last week that it was introducing four new categories in its age-ratings criteria - possibly the largest change it's ever introduced. This is being done to catch up with the times and better acknowledge the dangers systems like paid random items - which we know better as loot boxes and card packs - present to younger players.

Speaking to The Game Business, ESRB said that following PEGI's lead could be "confusing" for parents. Currently, it separately notifies parents about these elements in adjoining labels - a bit like PEGI used to do - and it believes losing those labels will mean a loss of needed information.

"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," an ESRB spokesperson said, "but that it could be confusing if non-content related features influence rating category assignments. 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 general Dirk Bosmans, in response, said: "We're conscious of the concerns that ESRB voices. If we add this, are parents losing information? You do want to inform them both about the content, and the context, of video games. 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."

PEGI's changes come into effect in June, so only after that point will we see games rated under the new criteria. All eyes will of course be on EA Sports FC, the next instalment of which will theoretically rise from an age rating of PEGI 3 to PEGI 16 because of this. The Game Business also spotted that Pokémon spin-off Pokémon Pokopia might face a stricter rating of PEGI 7 as a result, up from PEGI 3, because it urges players to return to it - a design that falls under the new play-by-appointment PEGI category.

Many previously released games will continue with their existing age rating, but PEGI has confirmed - if it needed confirming - that ongoing live service games will be reappraised. "We did not include a lot of detail about legacy products because that's something we want to figure out properly," Bosmans told The Game Business. "It is actually a lot more complicated than you might think. When we said that only games submitted to us from June onwards will be classified, we meant only from June, not today or next week, which probably caused some confusion. We will be looking at some legacy products."

These changes, he reiterated, are a start. "We need to give ourselves the time to find the proper parameters," Bosmans said, "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. 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."

Another question sprang to mind when I spoke to Bosmans last week while discussing these changes, and that was, with Grand Theft Auto 6 looming, whether he would let his 15-year-old play what will almost certainly be a PEGI 18-rated game? Bosmans gave a refreshingly level-headed reply.

Exodite1 on March 20th, 2026 at 15:55 UTC »

I do like PEGI’s new acknowledgment/classification criteria of things like loot boxes, timed in-app purchases, and dailies. Hopefully this can identify real gambling and addictive trends, and cut down on nonsense like when they gave Balatro 18+

CadeMan011 on March 20th, 2026 at 10:51 UTC »

It's funny how old Pokemon games can't get remade without have the slot machines removed because that's "simulated gambling" and that'll get it a T rating, but EA and 2K can put actual gambling in their games and it's totally fine.

drinkmydaycare on March 20th, 2026 at 10:15 UTC »

https://giphy.com/gifs/GjB41rKHBnOkE

ESRB