ESRB Ratings | Entertainment Software Rating Board

ESRB ratings provide information about what’s in a game or app so parents and consumers can make informed choices about which games are right for their family. Ratings have 3 parts: Rating Categories, Content Descriptors, and Interactive Elements. Our primary mission is to help parents make informed decisions about the video games and apps their children play. Our Advertising Review Council actively enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines, and our Privacy Certified program helps ensure responsible web and mobile privacy practices. Rating categories suggest age appropriateness. Content Descriptors indicate content that may have triggered a particular rating and/or may be of interest or concern. Interactive Elements highlight interactive or online features that may be of interest or concern but do not influence the rating assignment of a product. This includes users’ ability to interact with each other, the sharing of users’ location with other users, if purchases of digital goods or services are offered, and/or if unrestricted internet access is provided. Rating Summaries are assigned to many physical games and provide more detailed information about the content in a game and its context. You can find rating summaries when you conduct a ratings search on this site or download our mobile app. ESRB ratings make it easy for parents to get informed about the video games their kids play, but there’s more parents can do to stay involved and up to date. Learn how to set parental controls, manage your kids’ gameplay experiences using our Family Gaming Guide, download the ESRB mobile app, and more. Parental controls are available for virtually every device and allow you to block games and apps by rating, set time limits, manage in-game purchases, restrict access to the Internet, and more This user-friendly guide will help provide you with the information you need to manage your kids’ video gameplay experiences and keep peace of mind. Use our free mobile app to look up rating information, including Rating Summaries, on the go. Las clasificaciones de ESRB facilitan que los padres estén informados sobre los videojuegos que juegan sus hijos, pero hay más cosas que los padres pueden hacer para mantenerse involucrados y actualizados. “Mom, can I do more math?” Most parents would love it if their kids asked them that. Instead, they may get asked whether or not they can play Balatro. And parents could be forgiven if they had no idea, or even got the wrong idea, of what that Balatro is. The truth is that asking […] 65% of the ESRB ratings assigned to physical and console downloadable video games in 2024 were either E (Everyone) or E10+ (Everyone 10+). 84% of parents with kids who play video games are aware of ESRB ratings and 78% regularly check them before buying a game. (Source: Hart Research Associates, 2024) Most parents consider each part (Rating Category, Content Descriptors, Interactive Elements) of the ESRB rating system to be either “very” or “extremely” important when deciding if a game or app is appropriate for their kids. (Source: Hart Research Associates, 2024) Industry guidelines, which are enforced by the ESRB, prohibit the inappropriate target marketing of Mature-rated games. ESRB has an enforcement system which allows for the imposition of sanctions, fines (including fines up to $1 million), and corrective actions on publishers for non-compliance with its guidelines. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission 87% of kids under the age of 17 are turned away when trying to buy an M-rated game at retail. The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: “This [ESRB rating] system does much to ensure that minors cannot purchase seriously violent games on their own, and that parents who care about the matter can readily evaluate the games their children bring home.” The E (Everyone) rating was originally called K-A (Kids to Adults) but was changed in 1998. The ESRB rating system has three parts – Rating Categories, Content Descriptors and Interactive Elements, the latter of which were introduced in 2013. Introduced in 2008, Rating Summaries provide greater detail about the content in physical games rated by the ESRB, and are exclusively available on this website or the ESRB mobile app by conducting a title search. ESRB uses more than 30 different Content Descriptors to help communicate what’s in a game. The FTC considers the ESRB to have “the strongest self-regulatory code” among media rating systems in the U.S. and has confirmed that retailers maintain a high store policy compliance rate. Founded in 2013 by many of the world’s leading video game rating authorities, the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) administers the first globally streamlined age classification process for digital games and mobile apps that respects the unique cultural norms of each region. In 1999 ESRB Privacy Online (now called ESRB Privacy Certified) launched its certification program and was sanctioned by the FTC as a “Safe Harbor” under Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). More than 67% of parents would be more comfortable allowing their children to download and play a game certified by ESRB Privacy Certified (Source: Hart Research Associates, 2024). It’s never too late to have “the conversation” with your kids about what, when, and how they can play! Activating parental controls on your children’s video game devices helps you enforce house rules, such as limiting play time, blocking games with certain ESRB ratings, and managing in-game spending. The average gamer is 36 years old. Need Help? Contact Us. Sign up for email alerts and the latest news from ESRB.