With the plethora of video games released each week, it’s difficult for parents and the like to stay on top of what may or may not be appropriate for their children. Just looking at this week’s offerings, it may be difficult to decide when your at your local game store trying to make a decision. Luckily, it’s easier that ever to get all the information needed to make these decisions thanks to the internet. Today we’ll take a look a some of the many tools available.
ESRB Ratings
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was founded in 1994 in response to the more controversial games of the time such as ‘DOOM’ and ‘Mortal Kombat.’ The organization goes through each title similarly to how the Motion Picture Association of America does for films and movies. And like movies, the ESRB has made it easy to find out a game’s rating by ensuring that it is on the box of every PC and console game sold in the United States.
The games are rated by age appropriateness. This is what you can look for next time you’re out shopping or renting.
eC – Games with the eC rating are suitable for any age. Think of it as the G of video games. Actually, if there was a rating for movies that was safer than G, this would be it. The content in these game, as the rating suggests, is intended for ‘Early Childhood.’ Not only will these game be appropriate for any age, but more often than not, they will contain some amount of educational value.
E – E, no not E! the more than questionable ‘Entertainment’ channel (though I do love Joel McHale). This E is for Everybody. more appropriately that the last one, E rated games would be considered G films if the comparison were to be made. These games are fine for just about anyone, however some titles may contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language. I liken it to ‘Adventure Time.’
E 10+ – This is exactly what it sounds like, games that are generally suitable for everyone, but parents may want to double-check if the game is going to be played by a child under 10-years-old. If I were to make a compassion on this one, think of ‘Super Hero Squad‘ as rated E, and ‘Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes‘ as E 10+. Content is generally suitable for ages 10 and up. May contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes.
T – T is for teen. And much like it’s motion picture counterpart, the content in these games is generally suggested to be for ages 13 and up. Games in this grouping may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling and/or infrequent use of strong language. Games like ‘StarCraft‘ and ‘The Sims‘ would fall into this rating.
M – Mature audiences only here. It’s the rated R stuff. This is the ‘Die Hard’ to T’s ‘Tower Heist.’ It’s also, for better or worse, where many of the big name titles are categorized these days. So chances are that these are some of the games parents will be asked about with some frequency. Content is generally suitable for ages 17 and up. May contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.
AO – No, it’s not Ed McMahon’s AiiiiOhhhhhhh (yeah I know it was actually spelled Hiyooo, but bear with me for the joke here people). AO stands for Adults Only. This is the back room stuff. I’m assuming that if you’re reading this article as a means of making a decision on whether or not a game is age appropriate for a child I can stop there. Content suitable only for adults ages 18 and up. May include prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency.
RP – Occasionally you may hear a loved one talk about a game that they are looking forward to when it comes out. These unreleased games are often attributed the RP rating which stands for Rating Pending. These games haven’t been assigned a final ESRB rating. You’ll only see this in advertising, marketing and promotional materials related to a game that is expected to carry an ESRB rating, and should be replaced by a game’s rating once it has been assigned.
So now that you’ve had a look at what all those game labels stand for, hopefully it will help you out in gaming choices. And for those of you thinking that this was too elementary for you, don’t worry. In the next part of this series we’ll get deeper into the specific content of the series as well as provide you with some great tools to help you at anytime.
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