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pegi -

VideoGamer.com: Much of the work you do is trying to ensure that people play age appropriate games. Is it the case that you'll never stop under-18s playing GTAIV?

MR: I don't think you'll ever stop it. Not 100 per cent. Of course you won't. Like we can't stop kids under 16 smoking, or drinking alcohol. It's just not possible. At the end of the day we provide an age rating system that reflects the framework of development of children, which is a guide, it's give or take, but we have to put some hard markers on the sand for the shops. But as a parent you've got comparison of your child to other children in your peer group and you can see whether your child is ahead of the curve or behind the curve and then you have to use your judgement as a parent on whether you think they're ready or not ready, and the age rating there is a guide. So you've got on the one hand a legal system for supply, a labelling system as advice and guidance and you've got parental control that implements what is or what isn't appropriate. That's the system. Whether it's with or without parental knowledge children will play games below the age stipulated. If that's right or wrong it's for the parents to know. I guess I'm not advocating that a 12-year-old should play GTA. A 17 ½ year old? It's a different matter.

VideoGamer.com: One of the criticisms in the past of game publishers is that they have marketed their games in areas that would make you think the key demographic is below the rating given. Is that still happening.

MR: No. It shouldn't be happening. It's against the code of conduct under PEGI. PEGI says as a publisher, if you're rating a game under PEGI you must market it in accordance with the age rating. So you must not miss-market it. I think the industry has matured. It was a bit rock and roll when it started, there's no doubt about that. But nowadays it's run by men in suits who are respectable and have got families and who want to do the right thing. You might get it occasionally but you're not going to get it from the mainstream. What you'll get is the appearance of a game wanting to look a bit edgy. It may come through the PR more than through the marketing. If a game can get a bit of controversy around it and the press start writing about it, that's great. Keith Vaz has done more to sell Rockstar's games than Rockstar has. The original Manhunt was released, did diddly squat and fell right off the radar until the Stefan Pakeerah incident came and Vaz started shouting from the rooftops and then everyone went and bought the stuff.

VideoGamer.com: That's not the game industry's own problem, that happens with other things, too. If kids are told not to play something that's what they want to play.

MR: Of course. We did some research after the Pakeerah incident around adult ratings. The research company came back and had this wonderful phrase called 'the magic 18'. The 'magic 18' means this is a real game with real interest. It's just like a magnet. The kids want that proper game. A 16 rated game with a bit of shooting is not a proper one. If you go into a book store, how do you choose what's a good book or what's a bad book? How do you choose where the gory book is and where the titillating book is? If you're a young teenage kid and you want to go out and read about violence or get stimulated by the sex book, how do you find them? Not easy is it? Because there's no big labels on the front saying violence, sex, 18. It's not there. The only way you get it is by reading the cultural magazines on a Sunday or reading the book reviews or by going on the specialist websites that tell you. Wouldn't that be a better way to market a product? In a more level headed way. But we don't do that and we're forced not to do that. We're forced to go and stick a label on it that says it's 18 which acts as a magnet to the under age gamer.

What we're saying is it's got a rating, let's make that rating right, let's raise the awareness of parents that it's got a rating and what it means and empower them to parent their children and say yes or no. And to be firm. Parenting is tough. Telling your child no is not easy but no one asked them to have their kids. They've got to do their job. I don't remember being told no more than once by my mother.

VideoGamer.com: Anti-piracy forms a big part of your work. In terms of the UK how big a deal is piracy? Is it as big as some publishers say it is?

MR: Piracy is changing. More and more people can do piracy in the comfort of their own home. They can download stuff. They don't need to go and buy it from a car boot sale. We see less piracy in the old traditional ways. That doesn't mean it's gone away. It's just moving. We're desperately trying to tackle the chipping issue, because most of the consoles won't play a pirated game unless it's been modified itself. So if we can stop the consoles being modified then they won't be able to play the copied product and we can track it down. So that's our focus more and more. And we're trying to focus on the bigger players. We're trying to focus on those people who are running it as a business at the top end. We'll never tackle the kids that are copying a disc in the playground and sharing it with their mates. That's just too difficult. But if we can cut off the supply of modified consoles, chipping, that's a real positive start. If we can look at some of the auction sites where you've got prolific users with multiple user names and we've got some clever stuff that's able to pick that up and find them, that's good.

We take the approach that we always try and prosecute. Once you get a prosecution under a copyright or trademark offence Trading Standards can go for something called The Proceeds of Crime Act. What that says is if you are convicted you have to show that you got your income, your assets, your lifestyle from legitimate means. So if you're prosecuted and you've got a house in this country and a holiday home in Spain and you've got three cars in the drive and a few million in the bank you've got to prove that you've got all of those assets legitimately otherwise we'll assume you got them through criminal means. If you can't prove it then the court will make an assessment of how much you got through illegal activity and will put an order on you to pay that money back to the courts. If you can't pay that money within the time frame that the court says you get put in prison. And when you come out of prison you still have to pay it. And if you can't pay it you go back in prison again. It's the most draconian piece of legislation this government introduced to fight criminality. And do you know what? Criminals absolutely hate it, because it hurts them in their pocket.

VideoGamer.com: And what about PC piracy - games people download rather than buy. Is that a focus for you?

MR: The peer to peer stuff is done more on of an international basis than through ELSPA. We'll follow up leads that come into us. But this stuff can be tracked on a world wide basis. Our colleagues in America have got a big operation over there, so they're leading on that. But if they need help in the UK then they'll feed it through to us. So that's more of the route we take with that. But thinking about how gaming is moving and online, the gaming experience is that interactivity with other players, and your Xbox and your PS3 can detect if it's a copied product so they can block you at network level anyway. So unlike a movie where you don't need that connectivity, or music, we do have that extra piece of weaponry in our armoury so we have the potential to protect ourselves going forward. Not for everything, but for more and more things. Product will be sold online, it will be episodic, you'll need to have the product to get the next bit, so we have the potential to protect ourselves.

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