entertainment-software-ratings-board posts

With more and more downloadable only games being released for PCs and consoles, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board has decided to offer developers and publishers a new way to have downloadable games rated by the board that's different from how retail games are handled.

In a press release today, the ESRB announced that downloadable game makers can now fill out a form that "contains a series of multiple choice questions designed to assess content across all relevant categories, such as violence, sexual content and language, among others." Based on the responses the ESRB will assign a rating to the downloadable game "as soon as a DVD reflecting all disclosed content is received by ESRB."

After the game is released, the ESRB will check to see if the final version's content is consistent with what the developer or publisher disclosed in its form. It stated that a game's rating could be changed if full disclosure was not given by the publisher. It added, "In egregious cases of nondisclosure – which include a deliberate effort to misinform the ESRB – the game and all of its promotional materials will be removed from the store through which it is being sold, pending its resubmission to ESRB."

This new system will not affect games that are sold via retail stores. The ESRB said such games will still "... continue to undergo the traditional rating process, which involves completion of a more open-ended questionnaire and review of a content DVD by a minimum of three raters who reach consensus on the appropriate rating." It's important to note that members of the ESRB never actually play a game they are asked to rate before the game is released to stores, whether it is released via retail stores on via download.

Update: A rep from ESRB has told Big Download that at the moment this new downloadable games policy only affects console downloadable games.

The US video-PC ratings system, run by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, has posted up the percentages of games for each ESRB rating for 2010. As is the case with every year, the "M" rating was only put on 5 percent of all 1,638 US games in 2010 rated by the ESRB.

By far the biggest game rating percentage went to the "E" (for Everyone) rating with 55 percent of US games given that stamp by the ESRB. 18 percent of games got the "E 10+" (Everyone 10 and up) rating while 21 percent of games got the "T" (for Teen) rating. Only 1 percent of games in 2010 got the "EC" (Early Childhood) rating.

While games with "M" ratings make up only a small percentage of total games published in the US it must be said that many "M" rated games sell extremely well such as last year's best selling game Call of Duty Black Ops.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board does an excellent job in terms of having its ratings on the boxes of nearly all retail PC and console games. But perhaps parents want more info on what content is in a particular game beyond the rating and brief descriptions. This week the ESRB announced updates the organization's applications for the iPhone and Android-based phones that will give parents that info.

Phones with the ESRB app can now use the phone's camera to take a picture of a game box. The app will then display a detailed ratings summary of that game's content which for space reasons cannot be displayed on the box itself. The rating summaries are available for all games that have been released since July 1, 2008.

There's been a lot less pressure on the game industry in the past year or so about their ratings system as lawmakers and media watchdog groups have backed off somewhat about their criticisms about such ratings. However that doesn't mean some parents may not be aware of how the Entertainment Software Ratings Board works.

Publisher Activision has decided to launch their own public service program called "Ratings are not a game". The program consists of seven videos that Activision helped to develop with Dr. Cheryl Olson, co-director for the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital. The videos are designed to educate parents and teachers about the ESRB ratings and how to use them along with tips of how games can actually be beneficial to parents and children.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board's system to rate PC and video games has had its share of both praise and critisism over the years. Now the family gaming themed site What They Play is looking into what they see as a trend to put more adult content into games with the ESRB's "T" rating.

Specifically the article looks into the fact that in many "T" rated games the word "sh*t" is used more and more by game characters. Recent games cited as using the world include Wheelman, Mirror's Edge, Tom Clancy's HAWX and Tom Clancy''s EndWar. They also point out that in some of those games, the ESRB doesn't use the "Strong Language" description when it talks about the content of these games.

ESRB President Patricia Vance commented on this trend, saying, "There's no question that the average parent is sensitive to the language to which their children are exposed, just as they are to sexual or violent content. That's why one of our 'language' content descriptors will always be assigned to a T-rated game that contains profanity." It should also be noted that world "sh*t" has been used more and more in not just games but in movies and even on basic cable and broadcast television (remember that classic South Park episode?)

Earlier this week we reported that the House of Representatives in the Utah State Legislature had voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill that would allow game retailers to be sued by parents. The idea is that retailers who promote the fact they have game ratings enforcement systems for selling games to minors could be sued if they are found to violate their own policies.

Now one section of the game industry is fighting against the proposed law. The Entertainment Software Rating Board has issued an open letter to Utah's parents urging them to fight the bill's passage. Our sister site Joystiq reports that ESRB president Patricia Vance states the bill, if signed into law, " . . . would effectively penalize responsible retailers that have policies, and provide safe harbor for retailers that refuse to adopt a responsible policy in the first place. That is downright senseless."

Vance also says that a recent survey of Utah retailers show they enforce the sales of games with "M" rated content 94 percent of the time,". . . .without any laws or requirements that they do so." The bill now heads to the Utah State Senate for a vote in that legislative body.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board is expanding how much information they give about the content of each game they rate for release in the US. Today the ESRB announced that in addition to the ratings themselves and brief content descriptions on a game's packaging, all games from July 1, 2008 will also have more detailed content descriptions listed on their web site at esrb.org.

You can see an example of such content summaries above, taken from the ESRB web site for the upcoming Eidos game Battlestations Pacific where it mentions things like images of "pin up models in lingerie and bikinis" showing up in the game. These summaries will also be used in the ESRB's PC widget program and on their newly launched mobile phone web site m.esrb.org. This new addition has received praise from former critics of the ESRB including US Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Lieberman who stated, 'I applaud the ESRB for taking this proactive step to inform video game consumers."

You might know the Entertainment Software Association for their efforts in organizing E3 but the video/PC game industry association is a lot more. This week the ESA released their annual report where the group went over all of what they do for the game industry.

The 37 page document (in PDF format) is quite extensive with the ESA going over its efforts in court to prevent laws that might restrict the sales of games for their content. It also covers topics like their fights to prevent game piracy, their research into who plays video games, their support of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board and more. One rather glaring omission from the report is that the ESA lost five members (Activison and Vivendi Games, now Activision Blizzard, LucasArts, id Software and Crave Entertainment) during the past few months (to be fair it also gained three members in its fiscal 2008 year; Epic Games, MTV Games and Codemasters)

[Via Joystiq]