Due to be released on Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 later this year, We Dare features over 35 mini-games that take a distinctly adult approach, with marketing materials encouraging two players to kiss a Wii Remote simultaneously, spank each other to control on-screen avatars, and striptease to a variety of songs.
With its highly suggestive trailer and product description, Cubed3 queried PEGI on the seemingly low 12+ age rating.
PEGI stated that they do not look at the surrounding context of a game, only the in-game content. The suggestive naughtiness by the human actors in the YouTube trailer did not figure in the decision for the game rating:
PEGI does not take into account the context of a game when rating it, we only look at the contents of the game. [We Dare] has been rated as a PEGI 12 because it contains mild swearing, minor assault on a human-like character and words/activities that amount to obvious sexual innuendo, explicit sexual descriptions or images and sexual posturing.
Do demand that these types of artwork [are] on the same level as the game. In the case of We Dare, the cover and trailer are in correspondence with our guidelines.
It was considered that We Dare might justify a higher rating due to a specific (sexual) atmosphere, but this proposal was rejected by the Video Standards Council, an independent organisation that verifies PEGI ratings for use in the UK:
The game itself is in fact less sexual/offensive than the marketing campaign leads us to believe (for example, you cannot see real spanking in the game. There is a ‘stripping game’ but you don’t have to undress; throwing away keys or anything that reduces your weight is good enough).
