"The first interesting event is five minutes 46 seconds in. Someone says the word 'bastard' so straightaway the game has gone to a 12 certificate in my mind. Then at eight minutes and 28 seconds, Lara gets eaten by a wolf…"

I'm sitting with Jack Davies a games examiner at the Video Standards Council. Jack Davies is not his real name: apparently, if I use that, he'll be inundated with questions and complaints about previous Pegi ratings – and with only three dedicated game examiners here, that's the last thing he needs. He's picked Tomb Raider to show me the process the organisation goes through to rate games. Lara Croft's gruesome demise at the mouth of a lupine aggressor has just earned the game a Pegi 16 certificate. But there is more controversial fare to come.

Video game certification has always been a hot topic . From the very first BBFC rated title – the 1986 adventure Dracula – to the temporary banning of violent racer Carmageddon to the GTA: San Andreas 'Hot Coffee' scandal, gaming content has troubled censors, politicians and free speech campaigners the world over. Earlier this week, the Australian Classification Board announced that it had refused to grant the violent gangster romp Saint's Row IV a release license, effectively banning it in the country. The product was censored for its celebration of illicit drug use as well as "visual depictions of implied sexual violence which are not justified by context". Could something similar happen to this or any other controversial game in Britain?

Housed within an unremarkable modern office block, at the edge of a small business park in Borehamwood, the VSC was set up in 1989 to ensure that the film industry was abiding by the 1984 video recordings act. In 1993, however, it approached the UK games trade body ELSPA to suggest a voluntary ratings system for entertainment software in Britain. Then in 2001, a meeting of ratings boards throughout Europe led to the introduction of Pegi, the system that now controls the age rating of retail games in 31 countries around the continent. The VSC is one of two administrators, alongside NICAM in Holland, charged with carrying out the ratings process. Although the BBFC originally also examined games in the UK, the dual system was considered too confusing, and the Digital Recordings Act of 2010, enlisted Pegi as the sole arbiter of games classification.

Throughout Europe, Pegi is recognised as the standard rating for games, and in certain countries (including the UK and Netherlands) all titles are legally required to display a rating on their packaging. To submit their games for certification, publishers must become a member of the organisation. The first part of the process is an online questionnaire, which seeks to establish the product's content. Developers begin by answering questions relating to 18-rated content: does it contain graphic violence, violence toward innocent bystanders, or violence against vulnerable or defenseless characters? Is there sexual activity which shows genitalia? Is there rape? Is there glamorisation of illegal drugs? If all the responses are negative, the studio moves to the 16-rated questions, where less explicit forms of violence, sexual content or drug use are covered. And so on, down to Pegi 3, effectively the video game equivalent of a U certificate.

If the game warrants a 'yes' to any of the age rating questions, the process stops. The developer has to confirm that they have accurately represented all the content in the game and that they are aware of everything the player will see on the disk. The product is then put on to Pegi's online ratings system and the process of analysis and confirmation begins. If Pegi 18, 16 or 12 sections of the online form have been marked with a 'yes', the product comes to the VSC; the rest go to NICAM.

Hands-on evaluation

From here, developers have to send in a working copy of the game (a few bugs doesn't matter, but it has to feature all the content of the final release), as well as representational video footage. The latter must include all the cinematics and cut-scenes as well as what Davies calls, " a decent chunk of gameplay". "If it's something like a port of Street Fighter where the play is identical throughout, you only need 20-30 minutes of video," he says. "But with something like Tomb Raider or Bioshock Infinite, we'll need two or three hours of gameplay footage on top of all the cut-scenes. This will be used in 70-80% of the examination process."

The video is vital due to the time restraints of the process. Alongside the three full-time examiners, there are several staff who are trained up and can pitch in at busy periods, but even then there's a lot to get through. Out of the 1,813 titles rated by Pegi in 2012, 812 were handled here, so the team can't possibly play through dozens of 20-hour action adventures in their entirety. The video content can also be uploaded onto the Pegi system for all the country representatives to see and to provide lasting reference material. "On the system, we note all the sections of a game that would cause a particular age rating," says Davies. "That way, before we even play it we have a good idea of what it contains. Also we ask for video evidence of all the 'yes' answers from the questionnaire – that's useful so we can tell if the developer has misinterpreted any of the questions."

This is a key point. If a developer fails to declare adult content and is awarded a lower age rating, they've effectively broken the code of conduct and face a stiff fine – up to €250,000 (£212,000) for a first offence. "Along with that you have an illegal product on sale, so you're going to have withdraw all those boxes from the shelves," says Davies.

Although Pegi provides corporate training and e-learning to help developers with certification, there are often misunderstandings with some of the terms. Let's take the phrase 'realistic looking violence toward humans' for example. "The way we judge violence isn't really based around the quality of the graphics," explains Davies. "When we say we're looking for realistic-looking violence, it is about the reaction – the character has to react like they would in real-life. Also, it doesn't matter where the game is set – it could be space or medieval times – we don't take context into account. If a character gets punched and they respond by falling backwards, there doesn't necessarily have to be blood for a 16 certificate, they just need to respond realistically."

Games v movie ratings

Here, there's a crucial differentiation between game and movie rating. Films certification takes context into account – swearing is acceptable in a PG-13 release if it's used sparingly, for example, while extreme depictions of sex and violence may be justified in a 15 or 18 release if they're part of a strong narrative. In games, however, a single scripted swear word could be heard dozens of times by a player if they attempt the same section repeatedly, while story usually plays a more subordinate role to interactive action and therefore its contextual relevance is diminished. Everything that happens in a game is considered in isolation.

Another mistake developers often make when submitting gameplay footage is not considering elements of the content that sit outside the narrative action – the sorts of animations and interactions that examiners often only discover in a hands-on test with the code.

"The developer will often play through the game just to complete a level," says Davies. "They won't stop and see what every single weapon will do to a body. But I try all of them – sometimes explosive weapons will have different effects. I've tested games that have aimed for a 16 rating, but then I throw a grenade and sure enough there are arms and legs flying everywhere. I have to go back to them and say 'you didn't show me that."

While playing Tomb Raider, he shows me how he purposely exposes the lead character to fire, to test her reaction – if it's pain and distress, that affects the rating. "Obviously you're taking damage, but her skin isn't melting off – that's what I'm looking for," says Davies. He also checks for the ability to inflict post-mortem damage on bodies – smashing in a skull with a baseball bat, maybe. This could put it into 'gross violence' category. There's not much of this going on in the game we're playing.

So why was Tomb Raider an 18? Before the game's release last year, there was controversy over a single sequence, referred to in an interview with the game's executive producer, where Lara is tied up and sexually threatened by a male captor. It turns out, however, that by Pegi rating standards, the moment was so fleeting it didn't register. "I don't even think I marked it 16 for sexual violence," says Davies. "It just didn't go far enough". No, Tomb Raider received an 18 certificate thanks to a mere handful of gory death animations. "Most of the violence is 16-rated," continues Davies. "But there's a particular part where Lara goes down a zip wire and, if you fail to jump off in time, she is impaled through the abdomen and jaw by spikes. That counts as gross violence. It's basically anything that makes you go, 'eugh'".

According to Davies, developers are told which sequences of their game have earned a higher rating, and they are given the option to edit and resubmit. If they disagree with the judgement, there is an appeals process that may eventually end up with the Pegi complaints board, a pool of independent experts including child psychologists, media experts and legal advisers who'll decide on the case. This board responds to appeals from both developers and members of the public, but only two or three cases a year ever get to them. Often, it's publishers querying whether their game depicts the sort of 'gross violence' that earns an 18 rating. In 2011, Activision Blizzard successfully complained about the rating of Diablo III, contesting that although there is gore, it involves fantasy creatures and non-realistic reactions. The game was subsequently reduced from an 18 to a 16 rating.

Banning games?

So, back to Saint's Row IV. Could the game be banned in Europe under the Pegi system? The answer, for Britain at least, is effectively no. Pegi is a ratings system not a censorship board and has no remit to ban retail releases. However, in situations where a European member country has legislation that may be contravened in the product, Pegi will advise publishers that they may well be breaking laws.

"The Pegi system doesn't usurp national legislation," explains VSC communications officer, Gianni Zamo. "If a country has a particular piece of legislation that effects video games, then they may take action. The Italians were upset about Rule of Rose a few years ago, they felt it had child abuse elements, and were twitchy about that. But the Pegi system is not legally enforceable in that sense. Games can do anything as long as it's within the confines of the law."

In the UK, video game content is governed by the 1984 Video Recordings Act and its subsequent updates, which Pegi has to take into account when rating games. "We'd be talking about paedophilia, or any form of discrimination likely to incite hatred," says operations director, Peter Darby. "We've got a chair and vice-chair who are designated by the secretary of state to make a decision on whether a game should be given a certificate for release in the UK or not. Obviously that doesn't effect the rest of Europe, that's just for the UK. But that's the process we would use to effectively ban a game in the UK. There's quite a long process leading up to that, though. We have an expert panel that will look at it and advise on whether it breaches the law or could be deemed harmful. We have Tanya Byron and Geoffrey Robertson QC and the psychologist Dr Guy Cumberbatch – they wouldn't make a decision, but they'd look at the game and advise us on the sorts of things we need to take into account. Pegi is not a system that in itself bans games. But we will warn publishers to be careful where they release a title, because it could contravene laws."

So what happens in the event of a controversy? Does the government start trying to question the process? "The DCMS will never get involved in us coming to a rating decision," says director general Laurie Hall, a veteran of the home video business in the early 80s, when the video nasty controversy erupted. "If Keith Vaz raises a question in parliament or whatever, they may ring us to ask what we have to say about it; we'll say our piece and that may be their reply to Vaz in parliament. But they're at arm's length."

Online issues

But Pegi is facing new challenges all the time. While it has jurisdiction over all games sold via high street retailers and online giants like Amazon, emerging digital market places such as iTunes and Steam do not require developers to sign up to the Pegi code of conduct. We're well into a new era in which games are distributed across the internet to a global user-base. The VSC has noticed that the number of examinations in the Pegi 3, 7 and 12 categories have dropped in recent years as casual and family titles migrate to smartphone and tablet platforms. How can a ratings system keep up with that?

Right now, the body is developing 'Pegi For Apps' a streamlined voluntary version of the ratings procedure designed for smartphone developers who want to exhibit Pegi ratings with their digital products. There's currently no legal compulsion to do it, but Pegi's contention is it's better that publishers show they are being responsible, both to concerned parents and to governments who may well step in with mandatory classification systems if the digital gaming industry can't regulate itself.

Importantly, Pegi For Apps, doesn't just provide an age rating, it also introduces four new 'feature descriptors' – the icons that come with a Pegi rating that show the sorts of content a game includes: In-App Purchases, Social Interaction, Location Data Sharing and Personal Data Sharing. These could well be invaluable to parents who are becoming more concerned about the risks of giving kids free rein over handheld devices. "These descriptors won't affect the age rating, but we thought it was important to alert parents to these functions," explains communications manager, Dirk Bosmans. "It's a first step to more information. These descriptors could later be implemented with parental controls so a parent could ensure that if a game has in-app purchase functionality, the child cannot buy it."

More ambitiously, Pegi is also working on an international aggregation system for content classification, named IARC. It's an online questionnaire for developers that'll spit out ratings for a whole range of countries. Pegi is working with North America's Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) as well as ratings boards in Brazil, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Korea. "One global rating system is not possible, the standards are way too different – it would take us a century," concedes Brosmans. "But this is a fairly easy solution. We've been working on it for two years and we have a functioning model – there's a clear goal to implement it soon."

It's unlikely there will ever be a completely inclusive global aggregation body, however. "I don't think we'll get the Iranian system," says Davies. "It includes an age rating that goes up to '25 and married' – so there are certain games you can't play if you're 27 and unmarried. The country's trade body was at the Gamescom game conference last year – they had a big booth and they were giving out folders with all their content descriptors. They had one for 'hopelessness' …" Darby continues, "Russia is difficult to bring into IARC too because its ratings are culturally based. Will the game interfere with traditional family values? That's a problem we're facing with certain ratings bodies around the world."

But away from publishers failing to disclose adult elements, and the trials of introducing age ratings into the digital marketplace, there's one over-riding difficulty that Pegi faces. "Our biggest problem is getting parents to understand that these age ratings actually mean something," says Darby. "When we give a rating it is genuine, but parents see the word 'game' and to a lot of people that means it's for children. But it's not, many games are for adults. Personally, I think the problem is short-lived – there will come a stage where parents have grown up with games and will realise that some are unsuitable for young children."

It is extremely unlikely then that Saint's Row IV will be banned in Europe. Germany has its own supplementary body, the USK, which tends to be stricter than most other countries, but certainly in Britain, Pegi doesn't seek to censor in this way and will only raise the alarm if content actually breaks the law. The statement provided by the Australian Classification Board reads: "In the board's opinion, Saints Row IV, includes interactive, visual depictions of implied sexual violence which are not justified by context." However, as we have seen, context is irrelevant in the Pegi system. No doubt the examiners will have an interesting few days working their way through the game's crass and ridiculous litany of sexualised weapons and morally questionable cut-scenes. But the outcome is likely to be an 18 rating, and with a pile of other titles to get through, the focus will move swiftly on.

You can find out more about video game ratings at the Video Standards Council's dedicated website or at the Pegi home page. Britain's trade body UKIE also has a helpful site named Ask About Games, which is aimed at parents wanting to know more about age ratings, parental controls and safe family gaming.