New Rating ‘Process’ For Downloadable Games Only, ESRB Says

The new “streamlined rating process” that the Entertainment Software Rating Board introduced Monday is being tested now for downloadable console and handheld videogames only, ESRB President Patricia Vance said in a phone briefing with reporters. There are “no current plans” to use the new partially automated system for games sold at retail, which will continue to use the lengthier existing ESRB ratings process that’s been in place for many years, she said. The ratings in the new process themselves are identical to the existing ratings.

"We hope it will address the growing needs of the industry,” Vance said of the new system: “The videogame industry is obviously evolving and we must evolve with it.” There has been an “explosion of” games made available just via digital download from online stores including Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade, the Nintendo DSi Shop and Wii Shop, and Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation Store, she said. At the same time, there are new digital game devices arriving “all the time,” she said. A new ratings process was needed to address those trends, she said, saying the system introduced on Monday has been in development “for months now.”

The new system’s “efficiency and ease of use provides the scalability necessary to address the steady increase of games delivered digitally,” ESRB said in a news release. The old ESRB rating process was created in 1994, “before the explosion in the number of digitally delivered games and devices on which to play them,” Vance said. The three console makers didn’t immediately respond to request for comment about the new rating system.

Under the new process, rating certificates will be issued within 24-48 hours after the ESRB receives all the requested material from game makers, Vance said. Under the process for packaged games sold at retail, it takes 5-7 business days to finalize a rating after the material is received, she said. The new process is also “less expensive for developers,” she said.

As of Monday, publishers of downloadable games complete a different submission form than is used for all other games, ESRB said. The new form contains various multiple choice questions designed to assess content across all relevant categories, including violence, sexual content and profanity. The questions also address key “contextual factors such as the game’s realism and visual style,” as well as “the player’s perspective,” ESRB said. Vance demonstrated the process to reporters, showing that the new form starts with eight basic questions, but then expands based on answers given. “Hundreds of different combinations of answers” are factored in, all calculated based on the group’s many years of rating experience, she said. The responses provided determine a game’s rating, which is then issued to the publisher “as soon as a DVD reflecting all disclosed content is received by ESRB,” it said. The system for packaged retail games continues to require completion of a more open-ended questionnaire and review of a content DVD by at least three ESRB raters who reach consensus on the appropriate rating, it said.

Despite the heavily automated new system for downloads, ESRB said “all games rated via this new process will be tested by ESRB staff shortly after they are made publicly available to verify that disclosure was complete and accurate.” The group will play test “every single one of the games,” Vance said. If content wasn’t “fully disclosed during this process, the rating displayed in the console or handheld store will be promptly corrected,” ESRB said. “In egregious cases of nondisclosure -- which include a deliberate effort to misinform the ESRB -- the game and all of its promotional materials will be removed from the store through which it is being sold, pending its resubmission to ESRB,” it said.

"The biggest difference” between the two rating processes is ESRB’s “ability to scale” the new system “as necessary while keeping our services affordable and accessible,” Vance said. ESRB will “refine” the new process as it continues to test it, she said.

The new process will be able to issue an Adults Only rating for games that warrant it, Vance said. But console makers don’t permit AO-rated games on their platforms.