by Enrique Caroli on Nov 12, 2008
A major step towards less confusion.
The ESRB (the organization that rates games) today announced that will begin providing "ratings summaries" for all games it has rated since July first of this year. These rating summaries will include information on why a specific game was given it's rating in an effort to provide more information to parents.
The summaries join the ESRB's other efforts--rating labels on the front of game boxes and content descriptors on the back--to ensure consumers make educated purchases.
In response, a number of outspoken video game industry critics, including Senators Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Rodham Clinton, expressed their approval of the new summaries.
"This new supplement to the ratings is a real gift for parents as we head into this holiday season," explained Clinton. "These new rating summaries offer more helpful information than ever before to help parents to get involved and get informed."
Gamers in general are also pleased with this development since it's one more tool that parents can use to responsibly control their children's play time. With more ways available for parents to do their job responsibly, then less blame there can be on the video games themselves.
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