PEGI cannot be arsed to play the game, they just request video footage of various gameplay scenarios. This works somewhat OK for profanity, sex and violence but they really need a reform now that dark patterns are a thing.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 20 points 1 day ago

They're not interested in reform. This is the system working as intended.

PEGI is an industry trade association like the ESRB and MPAA (for movies). The MPAA realized a while ago that if you have a ratings system setup by the biggest companies in the industry, you accomplish two things:

Get government regulators off your back
Give independent creators a higher rating to keep them niche

In the MPAA's case, they do give indy films higher ratings, and no, it's not just because indy films have more risque content. That was accounted for by comparing to a popular independent rating system.

The ESRB was started when some members of Congress (Lieberman and Kohl, both Democrats) glanced over at video games and acted like they were ready to pass legislation. That legislation would likely never have survived a First Amendment challenge, but the industry would rather not go through that. Besides, it presents an opportunity to do the second bullet point while looking good to their core customers by doing the first. All the various CEOs call each other up and the ESRB is formed almost literally by the end of the day.

And now we have PEGI doing the same thing.

[–] SARGE@startrek.website 29 points 1 day ago

dark patterns

"Well if the game is too dark, then we would notice in the video and besides small children being afraid of the dark, you can just turn up the screen brightness"

-Some old as fuck asshole who doesn't really know much about the tech world anymore, assuming they ever did.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 10 points 1 day ago

Dark patterns were always a thing, they just weren't as recognized.