06 Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body The Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body (USK) has been committed to the protection of minors in the games sector for over 30 years. The wide range of computer and video games available on the market can pose a number of challenges for parents and educators: which games are suitable for children and young people? Which content is age-appropriate? As the games industry’s organisation for voluntary self-monitoring, the USK evaluates games in Germany and assigns age ratings. Around 18 million age labels now also provide guidance online. The USK age rating provides important guidance: 93 per cent of parents are familiar with the USK age rating, and 9 out of 10 parents believe that protecting minors is important when it comes to choosing games. 86 per cent also find the additional information on content and usage provided by the USK helpful. Since 1994, the USK has conducted over 55,000 age rating reviews. Today, more than 18 million age ratings are available to provide guidance on games, both online and offline. The primary reasons for an assigned age rating can be found directly on the back of a game’s packaging or on online platforms. These reasons may include depictions of violence, strong pressure to act or increased incentives to make purchases. Other potential risks to users – such as chats, in-game purchases or gambling-style elements like loot boxes – are also listed. In 2024, just under 30 per cent of the digital games evaluated by the USK posed these sorts of potential risks to users. As a result, approximately one third of those games received a higher age rating. The remaining games already included sufficient parental control systems. When assigning age ratings, the USK draws on the expertise of around 50 independent youth protection experts from the fields of media education and child and youth services. The USK also receives advice from a council comprising representatives of the ministries for youth of the German federal states, the German Federal Ministry for Youth, media education, churches and religious communities, the German Federal Agency for Child and Youth Protection in the Media, youth organisations and the games industry. The council defines the USK’s principles and the assessment criteria for the age-rating process. Additionally, the USK demonstrates its commitment to media education by hosting digital parents’ evenings and publishing guides for parents. Another milestone for the USK: since 2013, it has been automatically assigning age ratings for apps and games on online gaming platforms via the global system of the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC).In early 2025, the youth protection authorities of the German federal states evaluated this system and granted it official recognition – a clear sign that USK age ratings provide effective protection of minors in the media environment. Further information is available on www.usk.de Interview Sandra Winterberg on the International Video Game Collection Since early 2025, Sandra Winterberg has been the new Managing Director of the International Computer Game Collection (ICS). In this interview, she explains what makes the ICS unique and which milestones the organisation is hoping to achieve next. F: What makes this collection so unique? And what is special about the ICS? The International Computer Game Collection is the only one of its kind in the world, primarily due to its scope, its academic independence and its technology. It already includes well over 40,000 PC, console and handheld games – a collection of cultural treasures of unparalleled magnitude. Game titles are archived in a structured meta-database according to international standards, allowing for in-depth research. The five shareholders – the Computer Games Museum, the Förderverein für Jugend und Sozialarbeit (Association to promote youth and social work), game – The German Games Industry Association, the Foundation for Digital Games Culture and the USK – founded the ICS as an independent, non-profit organisation. It is fully committed to science, research and education. The faceted search function in our metadata infrastructure makes us a reference model for open research data. Consequently, the ICS offers the world’s most comprehensive and methodologically advanced research infrastructure for digital games culture. I am convinced that our collection, which we expect to grow to over 60,000 titles, will set new global standards for the archiving of games. F: What is the current status of the International Computer Game Collection? What are you working on at the moment? Right now, we are in the middle of an extremely exciting development phase at ICS. We are currently aligning the physical collection supplied by our shareholders with the corresponding metadata in order to ensure that our data is scientifically valid. Additionally, we are developing an image recognition system that will not only create digital twins of game packaging; it will also enrich the datasets with specific information on the unique items in the collection. The most exciting project is our AI prototype, however: this ‘AI agent’ adheres to rigorous academic standards as it searches publicly accessible sources of information from around the world. The data it finds undergoes a quality assurance process before enriching our data pool; this enrichment process will continue on an ongoing basis. In future, the AI agent will use natural language processing to serve as an intelligent partner to users of our collection, supporting them in their research and answering questions. F: What are the next steps for ICS, and what kind of support does the organisation still need? The next step, which will be very challenging, is to select a physical location for the ICS. We want to bring all the items in the collection together in a single location, where we can use cutting-edge technology to make the entire history of games tangible. We use systematic emulation processes to make unplayable games playable again – even if the hardware or operating systems have long since disappeared. The ICS will make it possible to do all of this for research purposes while still respecting all copyrights and intellectual property rights. With more than 40,000 games, ICS already preserves a cultural treasure of unprecedented magnitude. With its unique collection and cutting-edge, hands-on venue, the ICS will be an international flagship for the games industry here in Germany. And it’s about more than just researching computer and video games as a cultural asset, with all their historical, artistic and academic relevance; we also want to make the innovative energy of the games community accessible to all areas of society. A source of knowledge as valuable as the ICS needs reliable, long-term public funding. Games are a cultural asset, an important medium and a reflection of their time, and as such, they must be preserved as a source of inspiration for the future. F: Why should we invest in establishing an ICS in Germany? I am of the opinion that Germany can’t afford not to invest in establishing an International Computer Game Collection. Games have been a cultural reality for billions of people around the world for many years, and they deserve to be part of the public consciousness. With the ICS, we have the chance to play a leading global role and to set new international standards. I also believe the ICS will be a catalyst for innovation: the archiving and enabling technologies we’ve developed here have set benchmarks, and they can be applied to other digital cultural assets. In that sense, Germany will set the pace for the future of digital cultural heritage. Sandra WinterbergManaging Director of International Video Game Collection
