PEGI promotional activities and a mystery shopping test in Austria On Safer Internet Day the Austrian node Saferinternet.at presented promotional activities for PEGI and the results of a mystery shopping test.

Vienna is the first Austrian state where it is obligatory (according to youth protection law) to label computer games in stores with PEGI (or alternatively with German USK) symbols and to take the age specification into account when selling games to minors.

The Austrian node Saferinternet.at carried out a test to see whether this law is really implemented and whether salespeople are informed about the labelling system. The test was conducted in December 2008 and January 2009 by mystery shoppers, both young people and adults.

The most important results, presented on Safer Internet Day 2009, are:

• Practically all computer games available in stores are labelled with PEGI or alternatively with the German USK symbol.
• When parents asked about the meaning of the PEGI symbols only half of the sales staff were able to explain this in a competent way. Test shoppers were given misleading information about the difference between PEGI age specification and the actual playability (“Can my child really play this game according to this label?”) as well as about the meaning of some content descriptors (“What do these symbols mean?”).
• In 30 out of 41 cases minors were able to buy a computer game even though they were too young according to the PEGI label.

Results show that labelling itself works in Austria, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. This is particularly true with regards to the knowledge of sales people and the implementation of age verification. As a consequence of the test results Saferinternet.at has offered to actively contribute to training measures for retailers.

Saferinternet.at promoted the PEGI system and presented the test results on Safer Internet Day. A new parents’ guide on computer games was also launched in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Economy. In addition, families were invited to an information evening about gaming with the opportunity to get hands-on experience with computer games.