PEGI更新评级：含付费随机物品游戏划为16级

The Games Rating Authority is updating existing mobile games with new age ratings.
Titles with loot boxes are receiving a PEGI 16 rating.

Europe’s game age rating system PEGI is rolling out its latest update to reclassify existing games under new criteria.

As part of this update, the Games Rating Authority, UK administrator of PEGI, has started increasing the age rating on various established titles featuring paid random items like loot boxes. The update means such games are now clearly classified: PEGI 16 - paid random items.

The update has impacted digital-only games that were previously rated PEGI 3, 7 or 12. It applies to online games that received their rating via the PEGI Classic procedure and International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) system.

Changing times

The update began rolling out last week with plans to increase relevant games’ age ratings throughout the remainder of October.

Card collector Pokémon TCG Pocket now has a PEGI 16 rating on the Play Store in the UK, for example, as does DeNA’s 2019 title Pokémon Masters EX. Notably, this older Pokémon game doesn’t feature random items from loot boxes but rather includes new characters in a gacha.

Similarly, Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes has risen from PEGI 12 to PEGI 16, again not offering item-based loot boxes but monetising through a character-based gacha.

The changes follow an announcement this March that PEGI would initially assess newly released games by additional criteria, promising "substantive change" that would support online safety. The organisation began to include evaluation of paid random items, time-limited purchases and quantity-limited purchase offers in June, focused on new releases.

"A further update to the PEGI rating system is now underway. Since June, newly submitted games have been assessed against an expanded set of criteria within the PEGI rating framework, including new criteria relating to interactive risks. As the UK administrator of PEGI, the Games Rating Authority has now begun applying these updated criteria to selected existing digital products," the Games Rating Authority policy manager Connor Hinde posted on LinkedIn.

"We recognise that a high volume of rating changes will take place over a relatively short period. Publishers and developers with any questions, queries or concerns regarding the process should contact the PEGI Helpdesk for further guidance."

The Games Rating Authority previously spoke on stage at PGC London 2024, where director general Ian Rice discussed the "danger" of factoring loot boxes into age rating classifications. At the time, there was a reluctance to place games with loot boxes into the same age banding as more violent titles.

"We didn’t want to have that as an influential factor into the rating," he explained.

Following the announced changes in 2026, our Mobile Maven Claire Rozain commented: "How did we get here? The honest answer is: industry self-regulation failed, repeatedly."

PGC Nordics 2026 is currently taking place across October 20th and 21st with more than 1,500 professionals set to gather for two days of networking, pitching and learning. Tickets are available here.