ESRB Adds New 'Tween' Rating

The Entertainment Software Rating Board announced yesterday that it was adding a new category to the entertainment software rating format. The new "E10+" "would mark games that might contain moderate amounts of cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes." This puts the category between "E" and "T", and allows for racing games with violent crashes and superhero violence.

Comments

Basically, Almost No 'E' Games Anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, even Mario games have some cartoonish, fantasy violence. I guess that will get them a 'Tween' ranking now.

So what would qualify as 'E'? I guess puzzle games (not Super Puzzle Fighter, though) and stuff like Mary Kate and Ashley games.

At least it will make more sense

[musicman2059]

In opinion, I'm hoping that this will better inform parents driven solely on ESRB ratings. There are too many cartoon/fantasy violence games out there that have been "overrated" with a T rating. SSBM is THE perfect example of this, seeing that its predecessor was given an E. (The way it was put by Nintendo Power was that it was up to a T because of the better quality graphics, which is the biggest BS I've ever heard.)

So yes, hopefully this will ease the minds of many a parent and makes the decision easier.

I also like the "lives" (language, illegal, violence, evil, sex) system that was thought up. If only someone thought of that before. Kudos to the poster.

Re:I wonder

[blueZhift]

Actually Katamari Damacy gets a rating all its own as it is quite disturbing! A lot of fun, but definitely disturbing!

It will be interesting to see if any games in current release rated as T are retroactively rated to E10+ if appropriate. Obviously, this has serious marketing implications of the sort that drove the PG-13 movie rating's creation. The E10+ rating should result in a little upward tick in revenues as the group of "acceptable" games grows.

Re:Excellent.

[Toddarooski]

We had a bar chart like that many years back. It was the RSAC rating system, where several different thermometers measured how much violence, sexual content, and naughtly language appeared in videogames.

As you may have noticed, it's not around anymore. My guess is, it was too confusing for people. All that information is nice for some people, but a lot of parents just want to know, "Is it okay to buy for my 10-year-old, or not?" Frankly, I'm not sure I could look at your bar charts above and, without reading the titles of the game, know whether they were appropriate for kids or not.

Personally, I think the current ESRB system, with one big rating, along with several reasons why it got that rating ("Graphic violence", "Suggestive themes", "Super-exaggerated boobie animation", etc.) is probably a good comprosmise.