Last week, the European rating agency PEGI announced plans to make changes to its game rating system — specifically, it will begin assigning higher ratings to titles with loot boxes. However, their American counterparts at the ESRB are not planning to do the same.
A representative from the ESRB stated this in an interview with The Game Business. During the conversation, he recalled that since 2020, the ESRB has been separately labeling games that contain loot boxes and other types of random items, such as card packs and roulette prizes. To consider all this in rating assignments seems redundant to the agency.
Moreover, the ESRB fears that introducing this type of additional criteria could only confuse people.
“ESRB’s age and content ratings are based on the game’s content and the context in which it is presented to gamers. Our research shows that parents want to be informed in advance about the presence of options like online communication and in-game purchases with real money. There might be confusion if the rating category assignment is influenced by factors unrelated to the game's content,” explained the ESRB representative.
You can read in detail about what exactly is changing in the PEGI rating and how this innovation could potentially affect the gaming market in our special Premium article.