How to prevent certain audiences from obtaining games they shouldn't have and keep the gaming industry at a fairly unregulated state at the same time is something regions across the world have looked into. This is one reason the ESRB rating was formed. Another cause of the ESRB was a dispute between SEGA and Nintendo that led the whole gaming industry in legal hot water. As parents started becoming more cautious of the games their children were playing, SEGA was ultimately put in the deep end for endorsing the most violent and misogynistic content on their system. Even so, the industry held on without a satisfying proposition of how games would not end up in the wrong hands and could have reached government regulation. Fortunately, the game industry was able to corporate with a more agreeable set of terms for the government along with the support of retailers by not allowing games that are not rated to be sold within their stores. This ended up with a helpful rating system that is still taken for granted and in turn affects its usefulness. A growing market for games has further increased the need for game ratings to be considered by developers at the same time
The PEGI system is one other example of an expansion in the need for gamers to consider game ratings, especially since PEGI seems to be a little more cautious than ESRB when games are rated. An example of this is how sexual content is rated differently between the two ratings. ESRB would rate something as E10+ or T for teen (13+) if there are "minimal suggestive themes" and will only rate it mature(17+) if it's "sexual content" or Ao(18+) if the sexual content is seen as graphic; whereas PEGI 12 would be used for innuendo otherwise it would be classified as PEGI 16 or 18. This shows that ESRB is slightly less sensitive to sexual content as ages 10(E10+) to 13+(T) could be recommended, but any innuendo puts the rating immediately on PEGI 12, signifying that it's more recommended towards 12+; however, it is possible that ESRB would take a similar approach and rate games T for "crude humor". PEGI is also more sensitive towards swearing whereas PEGI immediately recommends games with "bad language" to PEGI 12 consumers. The ESRB system can allow "mild language" even in the lowest rating E for everyone. PEGI also has no rating similar to ESRB's RP (rating pending) rating. PEGI also takes into account whether games could induce fear in the consumer and/or if the game discriminates whereas ESRB prioritizes violence, sexual content, and gambling within their decision.
These differences mean that developers have to either water down their sexual content or language within games if they want to market it towards a larger age audience within Europe and other PEGI rating users or censor and possibly remove these parts of the game to be able to market the games to a wider audience. A solution to this would be to target games towards mature or older audiences only if you plan on making a game that involves any sexual content or separates it entirely from the game so as to have a consistent game experience for all gamers and let them enjoy the other parts of the game instead. If the game is marketed towards the youth then avoiding sexual content or bad language would be appropriate so as to have these recommendations work for the younger audiences in both regions.
References
Pitts, Kristin. “The Creation of the ESRB - Gaming Historian.” Edited by Norman Caruso, YouTube, YouTube, 23 Sept. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv3HDVd22P8&t=1639s.
Iowa State University. "Video game ratings work, if you use them." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 January 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170125145805.htm>.