At least in Germany this seems to be based on a combination of market incentives, case law and “I’ll know it when I see it”. I believe theoretically, a govermne

At least in Germany this seems to be based on a combination of market incentives, case law and “I’ll know it when I see it”. I believe theoretically, a govermnent agency could just decide to argue that e.g. Microsoft Word qualifies as a game. This would mean that it couldn’t be advertised or sold over-the-counter anymore, until Microsoft gets an age rating for it. There doesn’t seem to be an explicit legal definition, but the usual criteria are something like – it’s intended for entertainment – it isn’t intended for productive use. In practise, publishers must get an age rating or stores can’t have the game on the floor and may only sell it to adults, so it’s kind of up to the publisher. You could probably just tie a preservation responsibility to that. But really, all software should be preserved, so the distinction is kind of pointless anyway.