The ESRB will extend its rating services to digitally-distributed games. As announced this morning, the ESRB has launched a new Digital Rating Service that will be available to developers at no cost for assigning ratings to games distributed via Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Certified devices, Nintendo eShop, Wii Shop Channel and Windows 8, with “other digital content aggregators, online game networks, streaming and download services to follow.”
The ESRB has streamlined the process, allowing games to be assigned a rating quickly and unifying ratings across all types of games. “The resulting ubiquity of ESRB ratings will ease a parent's job by presenting a single ratings standard across the many platforms on which their children access games,” the ESRB said in a statement. “Increased adoption of ESRB ratings also means that developers will no longer be subject to differing and oftentimes conflicting rating systems and standards for their digitally delivered games.”
“Consumers have grown accustomed to using ESRB ratings when making decisions about the appropriateness of the games their families play. With the explosion of devices from which consumers can access games today, our goal is to ensure that those same tools are available everywhere games can be found,” ESRB president Patricia Vance added. “More recently, parents’ concerns have begun to extend beyond just content to include the sharing of their kids’ personal information or location and interactions with other players. ESRB’s Digital Rating Service now offers all digital platforms, storefronts and networks the opportunity to empower their customers with consistent, credible, familiar and useful upfront guidance no matter where their family chooses to play games.”
New Interactive Elements will also help specify what kind of information a digital game is sharing by specifying whether it Shares Info, Shares Location or if Users Interact, as identified by new icons. “In addition to providing critical guidance to consumers in advance of playing a game, all three parts of a game’s rating information (Rating Category, Content Descriptors and Interactive Elements) can also be mapped to parental controls to restrict access by these criteria,” the ESRB said.
Rating categories will continue to include E, E10+, T and M to dictate a game’s content in addition to the content descriptors and Interactive Elements listed above. The ESRB added that “while adopters of ESRB ratings may choose to not display all three parts, complete rating information is always available by searching the ESRB website at ESRB.org.”
Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.
Source : ign[dot]com
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