You're Doing It WRONG!

For some time now, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has been assigning content ratings for video games and software (to include mobile apps), as well as 'enforcing' advertising and marketing guidelines for the industry. Here is my beef, their rating system is stupid as hell.

They wanted to make a rating system that was easy for parents to understand: EC, E, E10+, T, M, AO. Yup, parents can REALLY get a lot from that at first glance! You can see their guidelines here.

Once you have looked at the rating system, you may think "Why are they using a new system to something that is already in place?". Great question, because it would make sense to use G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17! Something almost all American parents already know and understand.

They even go so far to say "This is O.K. for 17+ and this is O.K. for 18+". Like one year really makes a difference. The fact that they started a whole new rating process for a fairly new type of media is asking for issues to arise. In fact Unicorn, Puppy, Dragon, Sex would be more understandable for parents that have no clue what video games are (and there are a LOT out there) yet buy Mass Effect for their 8 year old.