Is that shooter suitable for junior?

Kristin Kalning Games editor • E-mail

Ever sneak into an R-rated movie as a kid? Of course you did. It’s a rite of passage, like skipping school or sneaking a smoke behind the cafeteria.

But if you’re a 13 year-old with a hankering to play "Halo," you’d better get your older brother to buy it for you. That game is rated M, for mature. And virtually no retailer — major or independent — will sell it to you.

But do parents really use these ratings when they buy games for their kids? Or is the ratings system little more than an olive branch from the video game industry to its most vocal, hand-wringing critics?

The answer is yes, and…sort of. It’s true that the Entertainment Software Rating Board was created by the video game industry as a way to get society off the industry’s back. But ESRB president Patricia Vance insists that the ratings system, now 12 years old, is relevant, useful — and widely used.

“We have very high awareness, and very high use,” says Vance. “Three-quarters of parents use the system all the time, or most of the time.”

Public service campaign
Despite this high level of awareness, the ESRB has launched, just in time for the holiday season, a new public service campaign. Earlier this month, the organization sent four spots featuring executives from GameStop and Best Buy to more than 800 broadcast and cable stations nationwide.

The ESRB’s game rating system is, like the film industry’s rating system, totally voluntary. So while game developers and publishers don’t have to submit to the organization’s rating process, they’ll be hard-pressed to find a retailer willing to carry their unrated game.

“At Wal-Mart we make every effort to be a responsible retailer and this includes the sale of video games,” says Wal-Mart spokesperson Karen A. Burk. “All of the items we carry are rated by the ESRB.”

As part of their partnerships with the ESRB, retailers agree not to sell M-rated games to kids under 17. They also agree to display signs at their stores and train their sales personnel to answer questions about the ratings system.

Different rating systems
All of the different entertainment mediums — TV, movies and video games — have completely different ratings systems, although they share many of the same basic principles. The distinctions are often lost on consumers — and parents.

The ESRB assigns one of six letter ratings to a game: E for everyone; EC, for early childhood, E 10, for everyone older than 10; T, for teens aged 13 and older; M, for mature audiences aged 17 and older and AO, the NC-17 of the video game world.

In addition to these ratings, the ESRB assigns content descriptors that help explain the reason why a game earned a particular rating. For example, Vivendi Universal’s “F.E.A.R: Extradition Point” is rated M for blood and gore, intense violence and strong language. Activision’s World War II game “Call of Duty III,” however, which contains plenty of gunplay, earned a T rating for blood, language and violence.

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