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.
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
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.
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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)
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)
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.
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.”
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.
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 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).
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.