The ESRB rating system was created in 1994 by the (ESA) or the Entertainment Software Association, ESRB itself stands for Entertainment Software Rating Board. The ESRB rating system found that what parents really wanted from a rating system is both age based categories and, equally if not more importantly, concise and impartial information regarding the content in the game. It was created after a they consulted a wide range of child development and academic experts analyzing other rating systems and conducting nationwide research with parents. Today game consumers play games on a variety of platforms and devices such as phones, handheld consoles, home entertainment consoles, or computer games, and parental concerns go well beyond just the content to include other elements like user interactions or the sharing of a user's location and personal information.
Ratings |
Content |
| EC (Early Childhood) | Intended for young children. |
| E (Everyone) | May contain mild violence, mild language mild language. |
| E10+ (Everyone 10 and up) | May contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language. |
| T (Teen) | May contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling and/or infrequent use of strong language. |
| M (Mature 17+) | May contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language. |
| AO (Adults Only 18+) | May contain prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency. |
| RP (Rating Pending) | Not yet assigned a final ESRB rating. Appears only in advertising, marketing and promotional materials, related to a "boxed" video game that is expected to carry an ESRB rating. |
In my opinion I believe there is a need for parental control to not only control what your kids play but also to prevent children from growing up with bad habits or learning bad influences from the games such as language or even a violent nature from some games. Not only could they potentially learn those kinds of things but now that games are not only rated the way there are there are some things that ESRB can't control all the time like online services which typically have a disclaimer stating that they can't control the content that may be present while enjoying certain online features. In most consoles or devices with video games they have parental controls of some sort to limit the use of some of those features.