A brief history of the ESRB rating system

The Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB, announced this week that it would make changes to the way it rates games, adding a descriptor that will call out the presence of in-game purchases. It’s a concession to the furor among the gaming public about loot crates that began late last year, one that even led some lawmakers to propose restrictive legislation against them.

This isn’t the first time that the ESRB has made changes to the way it rates games. Here’s a quick history lesson on what the ESRB is, what it isn’t, and how its ratings have changed over the years.

The birth of the rating label

Americans of a certain age will remember Tipper Gore, the cofounder of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). It was this organization that called out the “Filthy Fifteen,” a list of the most offensive popular songs that it could find. That list — which awarded Prince the gold medal for his work on “Darling Nikki,” Sheena Easton the silver for “Sugar Walls” and Judas Priest a bronze for “Eat Me Alive” — pilloried artists whom it deemed were producing content unsuitable for minors.

Won’t someone think of the children? asked the PMRC. That open question led to the creation of the Recording Industry Association of America’s “parental advisory” labels in 1985.

The Recording Industry Association of America

The idea, at the time, was that if an industry could regulate itself with common sense measures to inform parents of what their children were listening to, then the government would not need to step in. Legislators were appeased by the little black-and-white stickers, no one got too overly angry about impinging on free speech rights of artists, and by and large, Americans moved on ...

... to video games. It was the music industry’s parental advisory system and other self-governing ratings agencies that provided a model for the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB, nine years later.

The ESRB was formed by the Entertainment Software Association, a trade organization (read: lobbying group) made up of all the major players in the game industry. The ESRB’s essential function is to assign ratings to video games and apps so that parents know what’s in them — just like the RIAA does with Judas Priest albums, but with more granular detail.

Once duly informed, it’s up to parents to decide if that content is a good fit for their children. Also, ESRB ratings give retailers like Walmart and GameStop something to establish corporate policy against and train their employees with.

The ESRB today

All this background isn’t just lip service. It’s important to understand that the ESRB, just like the RIAA, is a non-governmental, self-regulatory body. When the game industry writ large is invited to take a meeting with the president, it does so out of courtesy, and not deference to any authority he might have over them or the ESA.

ESRB ratings have three parts. First, there’s the categories themselves. You’re likely familiar with them already: “EC” for early childhood, “E” for everyone (originally known as “K-A” for kids to adults), “E 10+” for ages 10 and up, “T” for teen, “M” for ages 17 and up and “AO” for adults only — a rarely used rating often considered the kiss of death for any game with hopes of commercial success.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board

Next, there’s the so-called “content descriptors.” These are little appellations added to the overall ratings. According to the ESRB’s website, that includes calling out things like references to alcohol, the depiction of blood, language and sexual themes, and the use of drugs and alcohol.

Finally, there’s an additional class of appellations that define a given game’s connectivity. These are part of a new category added to the ESRB ratings in 2013 called “interactive elements.” That’s where the new warning about premium content will go.

Here they are in full:

In-Game Purchases — In-game offers to purchase digital goods or premiums with real world currency, including but not limited to bonus levels, skins, surprise items (such as item packs, loot boxes, mystery awards), music, virtual coins and other forms of in-game currency, subscriptions, season passes and upgrades (e.g., to disable ads).

Users Interact — Indicates possible exposure to unfiltered/uncensored user-generated content, including user-to-user communications and media sharing via social media and networks

Shares Location — Includes the ability to display the user’s location to other users of the app

Unrestricted Internet — Product provides access to the internet

The total number of descriptors has grown over the years. In the 1990s, there were only 22, and today, there are a total of 34, including the new one about in-game purchases.

And yet ...

But are the ratings effective at keeping games out of the hands of children who shouldn’t be playing them? A 2008 study by the Federal Trade Commission says yes.

So does one conducted in 2011.

And 2013.

Each time, underage shoppers were nearly twice as likely to be able to get into an R-rated movie than they were able to purchase an M-rated video game.

The more challenging aspect of the ESRB’s mission is educating American adults about the ratings that it puts on games. So far, the ESRB has partnered with retail outlets, retail distributors, the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), U.S. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph Lieberman, Good Housekeeping and Parenting magazines, the New Orleans Saints, Chicago Blackhawks, Washington Capitals and San Francisco Giants, just to name a few.

But its efforts and research just don’t seem to stick with the public at large, as video games continue to be considered too widely accessible to underage consumers.

If there is a meeting next week between the game industry and President Donald Trump, it will likely be someone from the ESRB who is called upon to show up.

Our president is calling on the ESRB to put ratings on video games, making explicit whether they contain violent content. It’s expected that the ESRB will remind him, should they meet with the president in person, that it’s something they’ve been doing since 1994.

Incidentally, that’s the same year that the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, commonly referred to as the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, was passed into law. It was allowed to expire in 2004.