Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the effect of downloading of additional content of videogames that will potentially change the age classification of the game.

The Pegi classification system for video games considers the potential for additional downloadable content to diverge from the age rating of the initial product. Under the terms of the certificates issued for games by the UK’s Games Rating Authority (GRA), where subsequent content offered for download is not appropriate to the Pegi rating issued, the new material must be notified to the GRA so they can review and award a new Pegi rating.

Video games publishers failing to comply face fines from Pegi of up to 500,000 Euros.

In the last 12 months the GRA has received seven submissions of additional downloadable content from games publishers. They considered that none of these needed a higher Pegi rating than the original game.