PEGI Celebrates First Two Years of Operations
Brussels, December 14, 2004. PEGI, the Pan European Game Information system that provides harmonized age classification of interactive software throughout Europe is poised to celebrate its first two years of operations. Time to take stock and to look at the future.
PEGI is the first ever pan-European rating system developed by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (Video Games Europe) to provide consumers with an independent evaluated recommendation regarding the age class for which a computer or video game is suitable. It was developed between May 2001 and May 2002 by a working group of multinational, multi-trade experts representing governments, associations, academia and the game industry.
Growing numbers
As a result, the Netherlands Institute for the Classification of Audiovisual Media (NICAM) and the Video Standards Council (VSC) were commissioned to administer the system. In January 2003, they began to train coders to work with the PEGI classification. Within a month, they received the first applications for a PEGI license. In early April 2003, the first PEGI rated games appeared on retail shelves. Today, more than 2500 games have already been rated and over 120 publishing companies throughout the world have signed up to have their products fly the PEGI colours (see the full array of logos and descriptors below).
The breakdown of those 2584 games by age class is very telling of the actual product line offered by the interactive software industry:
| Rating | Amount | Percent |
| 3+ | 1219 | 47% |
| 7+ | 227 | 9% |
| 12+ | 720 | 28% |
| 16+ | 347 | 13% |
| 18+ | 71 | 3% |
| Total | 2584 | 100% |