For games that launch as digital-only in countries that use the ESRB ratings board, a free rating is given to them via their Short Forms process. However, once June rolls around, the ESRB plans to cease offering this. This will mostly affect independent developers that have games that are made on a low budget, as registering for an ESRB rating can cost $1000-3000 for them. There is a way to circumvent this, though, as digital games can still get a free International Age Ratings Coalition (IARC) rating, which is accepted on the Nintendo eShop, Microsoft Store, and Google Play Store. IARC ratings notably leave out the PlayStation Store, which still require games have an ESRB rating to be allowed to be sold on PlayStation systems.

Source
ESRB ToS

 

[orangy57]

CEET MARP

 

[dude1]

Esrb is a overrated waste of time & I'm surprised it hasn't died already
This should help that goal so guess it's a win win

It's been toothless forever as someone who grew up with the ESRB it didn't prevent me from buying or renting anything I wanted as a kid because it wasn't law.
if some uppity employee had a moral stance against it I would just go to another store or complain but realistically most of those people made minimum-wage and it wasn't worth the pain of me complaining to there boss/manager

Funny enough in some provinces some GTA's and I think a few other games got movie board ratings, because there were laws against selling those the kids.
Of course that didn't stop kids from buying them

There are some teen rated games, probably even some M rated games I would let my niece play on the flipside there are people who are in their 20s and 30s I wouldn't let play Grandtheft auto

Age is a stupid limiting factor to prevent someone from playing a game

it's an excuse not to parent, if you're a parent you know when your kids capable of handling certain issues, and anything that is remotely controversial gets mentioned in the review or a YouTube video or on Facebook etc.
Thankfully with this day and age being all about social media and other such nonsense people may be incentivized to let things like the ESRB die because they will care what their friends and friends of friends think of a peticular game etc.


Rant over
Tldr: no one cares ESRB
Keep your free ratings

 

[jumpman17]

Do digital games even have to have an ESRB rating? I thought that was only required to sell in stores. I thought lots of digital games still didn't have ratings.

 

[Jacklack3]

"...YOU KNOW, WHAT'S BULLSHIT?"

that comma makes it seem like you're asking what bullshit is. lol

 

[Cyan]

why would they need to pay someone to tell "heyy, there's blood and violence in this game" ? Developers can't write those words themselves on their game?
who decided that games needed a private company to put words on them to be sold ? another story of monopoly and politician corruption?

"this game has blood and sex" you need to be educated to understand that you can't let your 3 years old kid play it? just have some common sense before buying a game.
if the game shows "18+" it means one day before your birthday you can't bear the game, but at midnight you magically can ?
numbers are subjective and different for all peoples. common sense should have more impact than age written on your ID.

oh, and why did they decide 18+ ? shouldn't it be 21+ in USA?

 

[Deleted User]

Nice! less digital only games.

Bring on the physical.

 

[SomeKindOfUsername]

why would they need to pay someone to tell "heyy, there's blood and violence in this game" ? Developers can't write those words themselves on their game?
who decided that games needed a private company to put words on them to be sold ? another story of monopoly and politician corruption?

"this game has blood and sex" you need to be educated to understand that you can't let your 3 years old kid play it? just have some common sense before buying a game.
if the game shows "18+" it means one day before your birthday you can't bear the game, but at midnight you magically can ?
numbers are subjective and different for all peoples. common sense should have more impact than age written on your ID.

oh, and why did they decide 18+ ? shouldn't it be 21+ in USA?

Payment is required for their employees and general upkeep, plus the cost is negligible for most publishers. That's where the International Age Rating Coalition came in, at least for digital only games, to eliminate the cost by letting the developer partially come up with the rating themselves. As for the ages, it was likely based off movie ratings.

Some people may not like it but it was either the ESRB, a self-regulating body comprised of the some of the biggest names in the video games industry, or government regulation and possibly intervention. Interestingly enough, gamers are suddenly clamoring for government regulation and intervention in regards to loot boxes. Ain't that something.

 

[FAST6191]

who decided that games needed a private company to put words on them to be sold ? another story of monopoly and politician corruption?

The usual scenario runs

*politicos*
Oh look the most traditionalist voter base is doing the *rabble rabble rabble* thing about some new thing the kids are into.

*politicos*
Hey [new thing the kids are into] industry. Don't make us come over there.

*[new thing the kids are into] industry*
Whoa it's OK we will set up our own self governing body.
Commonly also seen is a massive overreaction at this point

*politicos to traditionalist voters*
Look, we made the nasty [new thing the kids are into] industry shape up and be policed by themselves so it does not even cost you tax money, also no worries about free speech either. Go back to stroking your religious books lovingly and don't forget to vote.


We saw it with film. In the US this was the Hays code


With comics in the Comics Code Authority


Music wise it varies a bit as that comes and goes (music in and of itself has been around so long it can no longer be scary, subgenres on the other hand... Jazz, Rock n roll, metal, rap and more all had their time being blasted)
but if I am linking videos then Dee Snider and PMRC has to be done.


TV kind of went the reverse at times -- all those nice toy commercials in the 80s and 90s came more from a relaxing of such codes, though you can still get occasional gems in cartoons of that era (I did have an xmen animated series clip where it makes sure to spell out the sentinels were not a government thing as you can't be seen to go against them).

 

[OctolingRift]

Good. Less shity Indie Games now!

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

why would they need to pay someone to tell "heyy, there's blood and violence in this game" ? Developers can't write those words themselves on their game?
who decided that games needed a private company to put words on them to be sold ? another story of monopoly and politician corruption?

"this game has blood and sex" you need to be educated to understand that you can't let your 3 years old kid play it? just have some common sense before buying a game.
if the game shows "18+" it means one day before your birthday you can't bear the game, but at midnight you magically can ?
numbers are subjective and different for all peoples. common sense should have more impact than age written on your ID.

oh, and why did they decide 18+ ? shouldn't it be 21+ in USA?

They have to pay because retailers force them to, that's it. Stores and companies partner up with the ESRB so they don't end up legally responsible for screwing up some kid by selling them "mature content" without some kind of warning beyond "WOW BLOOD AND GUTS, SUPER COOL! LOOK AT THESE 3D RENDERED TITS! AWESOME!" on the box. There's literally nothing stopping devs from releasing their game elsewhere or on their own, they just stick with the ESRB so they can sell their games in as many places as possible.

Also, the reason it's 18+ in the US is because it's at this point that you're considered "legally" an adult in the US (at least, in most states, I think 2 or 3 of them have the age higher). AFAIK there's not any kind of scientific basis on why it's 18, it's just because back in the 70s an amendment was added that changed the legal voting age to 18 instead of 21, resulting in most states deciding to lower the "legal" age to 18 as well.


I feel like a lot of people are kind of missing some things here though. The IARC is just a secondary way for digital games to be given an ESRB rating (and PEGI nd USK and GRAC etc etc ratings), automatically without any employee input required. This reduces costs for the ESRB (less workflow, fewer employees required), and allows small time developers to get their games a rating without having to wait for XYZ suits to judge and rate their game. IMO, it's a better system, so there's really no reason to have the short form available any more...which is why they're phasing it out, so people use the IARC instead. There's literally no reason for any backlash here, and it's not going to somehow result in "fewer digital games" like people apparently think because they literally just have to use the IARC questionnaire instead of submitting a short form to the ESRB. Literally nothing changes here beyond the process in which you get the rating. They're not forcing devs to use the paid, long form.

 

[the_randomizer]

The ESRB is the reason VC games on Nintendo consoles were so "expensive."

Oh, so they're the dumbasses responsible.

 

[osaka35]

There's some misunderstanding here: Sony's quite open with Cross platforming. FFXIV is proof of this. Last it was heard, Micro$oft was saying "We'll gladly join in your game, presuming we have Datacenters exclusively for use for XBox users", hence trying to SCREW Cross platform.

A lot of games don't even take place on servers they own, they're just the gatekeepers. Pay for PSN/Live just so you're allowed to use the servers owned by someone else. it's annoying. But pretty much all cross platform games are supported by pc, nintendo, and microsoft, with sony going "nah man". I'm sure they're doing it because it makes fiscal sense to them, but it's still annoying.

 

[Ryccardo]

Do digital games even have to have an ESRB rating? I thought that was only required to sell in stores. I thought lots of digital games still didn't have ratings.

As partially said by Tom above, rating is technically optional law-wise in most countries (except for some, highly known for the lack of government meddling into consumers' freedom like England and Australia) - and in a largely-the-same majority of countries they are not legally binding in the first place, but right a couple of years ago major digital stores (Google Play and Microsoft, to name two) gave their developers a month of warning to have their apps rated or removed

 

[Jacklack3]

Nice! less digital only games.

Bring on the physical.

But what if a developer doesn't have enough money to make their games physical? I can see why you'd want physical games but digital is better than no game at all.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

But what if a developer doesn't have enough money to make their games physical?

Then they use the IARC's questionnaire and get an ESRB rating automatically for free for their digital game, because this news is literally no big deal whatsoever.

 

[Jacklack3]

Then they use the IARC's questionnaire and get an ESRB rating automatically for free for their digital game, because this news is literally no big deal whatsoever.

oh ok then

 

[StarTrekVoyager]

inb4 they all use PEGI

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Play Store doesn't use ESRB ratings anyway does it? You just set the rating yourself.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Play Store doesn't use ESRB ratings anyway does it? You just set the rating yourself.

When you submit an app to the Play Store, you now have to fill out an IARC questionnaire which automatically generates the rating, and then applies the "region specific" rating for your app. You don't get to choose anymore.

So for the US, they're given an ESRB rating (like so). For European countries that follow the PEGI standard, they use PEGI ratings. If it's a country that has no official rating company, it's just a generic IARC rating.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

When you submit an app to the Play Store, you now have to fill out an IARC questionnaire which automatically generates the rating, and then applies the "region specific" rating for your app. You don't get to choose anymore.

So for the US, they're given an ESRB rating (like so). For European countries that follow the PEGI standard, they use PEGI ratings. If it's a country that has no official rating company, it's just a generic IARC rating.

Ah I see, yeah I think I did have to fill that out at some point as I got an email telling me I had to do it.
Even though my app isn't even a game... Is putting age ratings on non-game software normal?