ESRB Ratings | Entertainment Software Ratings Board

ESRB ratings provide information about what’s in games or apps so consumers can make informed choices

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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.

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About the ESRB

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
Content Descriptors
Interactive Elements
Rating Summary

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Rating categories suggest age appropriateness.

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Descriptors

Content Descriptors indicate content that may have triggered a particular rating and/or may be of interest or concern.

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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.

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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.

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Tools for Parents

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 help you manage your children’s video game use when you aren’t around, ESRB.

Parental Controls

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

ESRB guide to help provide parents with the key information they need to manage kids’ gameplay

Family Gaming Guide

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.

A woman in the image is browsing ESRB ratings on her smartphone, checking the age-appropriate content for video games or other media in a retail setting.

ESRB Mobile App

Use our free mobile app to look up rating information, including Rating Summaries, on the go.

¡Vamos a Jugar! Las clasificaciones de ESRB facilitan que los padres estén informados

¡Vamos a Jugar!

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.

ESRB Blog

A cartoon family sits in a living room. A man and a child sit onthe floor while a woman and an older child sit on a beige sofa. They are all holding video game controllers and it looks like they're having a great time playing together!

Manage Your Kids’ Video Games With ParentalTools.org

Get ready for ESRB’s newest update to ParentalTools.org! We know that parents have a lot of options to manage your kids’ video games, ESRB is here to help with a refreshed parental controls section and Family Gaming Guide. Parental Controls Guides ESRB has long provided step-by-step parental controls guides for many popular video game devices. […]

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Did You Know?

67% of the ESRB ratings assigned to physical and console downloadable video games in 2022 were either E (Everyone) or E10+ (Everyone 10+).

Did You Know?

84% of parents who purchase physical video games for their children are aware of ESRB ratings and 74% regularly check them before buying a game. (Source: Hart Research Associates, 2022)

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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, 2022)

Did You Know?

Industry guidelines, which are enforced by the ESRB, prohibit the inappropriate target marketing of Mature-rated games.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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The E (Everyone) rating was originally called K-A (Kids to Adults) but was changed in 1998.

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The ESRB rating system has three parts – Rating Categories, Content Descriptors and Interactive Elements, the latter of which were introduced in 2013.

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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.

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ESRB uses more than 30 different Content Descriptors to help communicate what’s in a game.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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More than 70% of parents would be more comfortable allowing their children to download and play a game certified by ESRB Privacy Certified (Source: Hart Research Associates, 2018).

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It’s never too late to have “the conversation” with your kids about what, when, and how they can play!

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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.

Did You Know?

The average gamer is 33 years old.