Governing; Regulatory and Industry Related Bodies - BBFC

How Has the BBFC influenced Games Development?

The BBFC (The British Board of Film Classification) are the age regulators for videogames and film related content that are released within the UK. They decide what is the appropriate age for the products they review and provide consumer advice similar to what PEGI and the ESRB does. They previously were known to be the organisation to do the age classification for videogames in the UK before being replaced by PEGI. As of now, they currently only do the age ratings for upcoming films that are released in the UK which is more fitting to the name of the organisation being known as the ‘film classification’.

The BBFC’s possibility of being replaced by PEGI could be from struggle within the organisation. (Ryan, 2011) claims that the BBFC had a hard time with rating videogames due to how ‘complex’ they were becoming and the ‘infinite variety’ they have. It is suggested that PEGI has helped parents (ranging from different cultures and backgrounds) within European countries make a choice on what games would be appropriate for their children to play (Ryan, 2011), meaning this could apply to parents within the UK and therefore being a reason as to why the BBFC is no longer used for videogame age ratings. This as a result could mean that videogames being developed during the time of the BBFC regulating, were being too difficult to analyse for an accurate age rating. The BBFC are known to accurately rate films and may be struggling to give videogames an accurate age rating due to how advanced and complex they are as the article suggests. This can be seen as a great change in how videogames are given an age rating as complexity can lead to trouble with giving games the correct rating they deserve and the BBFC has had a struggle with doing that, a way developers should prevent this is to be as clear as they can be with what is displayed in their videogames to ensure parents know what to expect in the videogame they could be buying for their children and possibly sell better as a result of being honest.