Crackdown on sales of violent video games

VIDEO games will get movie-style age ratings under a Government plan to tackle the growing fear that exposure to on-screen sex and violence is warping a generation of children.

And retailers who sell adult-only video games to minors will face tough measures under the proposed crackdown, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

Ministers want to make it easier for parents to protect their children from violent games by introducing a new, simpler classification system based on age ratings used by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). Under the new scheme, it would become illegal for retailers to sell any video game to a child who was younger than the age rating on the box. At present, only the most violent games are regulated.

The moves come after more than 400 children and 350 adults responded to an inquiry headed by television psychologist Dr Tanya Byron into the potential dangers to young people of the internet and video games. Her review, due to be published in March, has found that people want clearer information about the content of video games.

Under the current rules, about 10% of the 2,000 or more video games produced each year are given an age rating from the BBFC. Only games that show sex, gross violence, criminal activity or drug use have to be referred to the BBFC. Shop staff can be fined or even sent to prison if they sell a game to a child below the age rating.

The majority of games receive an age rating based on a voluntary system run by Pan-European Game Information (PEGI). PEGI ratings are not legally enforceable, however.

Eileen McCloy, who runs family rights group Not With My Child, said: "Voluntary regulation rarely works, shopkeepers don't care so long as the child looks about the right age. It needs to be legally enforceable."

Gordon Brown has indicated that he is prepared to back Byron's recommendation for a single, legally backed classification system.

Keith Vaz, the Leicester East MP, has campaigned for tighter controls on violent video games following the murder of local schoolboy Stefan Pakeerah in February 2004. The 14-year-old died after his friend Warren LeBlanc attacked him with a claw hammer and knife. Both boys had been playing the 18-rated video game Manhunt in which a convicted murderer gets points for killing people.

The Byron review has worked closely with the video games industry, which is worth more than 800m to the UK economy.

Rockstar North, which was founded in Edinburgh in 1988, produced the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto series as well as the controversial Manhunt and Manhunt 2 games.

The High Court is expected to announce this week whether it will uphold a decision by the Video Appeals Committee to allow Manhunt 2 to be sold in the UK. The BBFC wants the game to be banned. Rockstar declined to comment.

David Braben, the founder of Frontier games, said there was already a strict regime in place which the industry went to great lengths to adhere to. He said parents and retailers must take some responsibility.

He said: "The real question is how seriously do people take the existing regime. I have been in a shop when a woman was buying an '18' game for what looked like a 10-year-old and you'll find that games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which has an 18 rating, are being played by children."

The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association said: "We support the current systems in place for rating video games and work hard as an industry to act responsibly when producing any adult content."

Sue Clark, the BBFC's head of communications, said: "Our research shows that the public knows and understands the BBFC system and that the age limits relate to content not to their level of difficulty."