The Ratings Them Selves and Information About the Ratings.

Hello again. Sorry about the crazy formatting, but more down below some of the pictures. Thank you!! This is where we get into the ratings themselves, what they mean, and where you can find further information about them.The first rating we are going to talk about is Early Childhood represented by this picture here: "EC"

This means that the game is appropriate for young children, of  2-5 probably. The content is going to be very mild and probably somewhat zany, so while it is appropriate for your young child, that does not mean that it is content that will be appreciated by all children. As children mature, so do games. An early childhood game will not satisfy a child of say 6-8 because the content is no longer challenging enough. In order the challenge a child of an older age, you will have to go to the next rating, which is: "E" A game being rated "E" for Everyone means just that, that is is basically appropriate for all ages, from 6- infinity. Once again, that does not necessarily mean that everyone will be entertained by games with this rating, but they are age appropriate. The next rating is "E 10+" This rating means that the game is considered appropriate for those aged ten years old and older. That may be due to more violent content of themes that are considered more adult. Not exactly adult situations, but maybe more cartoony or fantasy violence as opposed to the milder games one would find under “E” or “EC”. The next rating is “T” for Teen. Games rated “T” are more likely to have more mild yet real world type violence, as opposed to the cartoon violence and hilarity that one finds in the games from previous ratings. There is also the chance of hearing some mild language, things like “damn”, “crap”, “Shit” (because I think in games you have about the same amount of sh*ts as in films excuse the oddness of this statement), and maybe one or two “f” words just like you might find in films. Basically it is the PG-13 rating for games. The next rating is “M” for mature. This is where you will find all your sex, violence and swearing. They come in spades in “M” games. An example might be Grand Theft Auto or Bloodborne which are both “M” rated games. GTA has all three of those, sex, violence, and swearing, while Bloodborne mostly has swearing and violence. That does not necessarily make it better or worse, but there are a variety of reasons why a game can be rated “M”, which is what I am trying to say. The rating “AO” means Adult Only, and it is for those 18 and older. This basically means that it is either “X” rated or that it is considered explicit content. You will not find this rating of games on consoles (X-Box, Playstation) you will only find it on PC games. Finally, if you see the rating of “RP” it means that the ESRB have not decided on a rating for that game, so the game has its “rating pending”. When it is finally rated it will be one of the above listed ratings. On the final picture is some further information about ratings, and what they mean. Check it out and if you do not understand, please go to the ESRB rating explanation page here. Thank you very much for reading!!

Works Cited

“Rating catagories, Content Descriptors.” ESRB. Entertainment Software Rating Board, n.d., Web.