Talk:Entertainment Software Rating Board

Images

File:ESRB users interact.jpg So I noticed that images such as the one on the right have been gone. Do we need to have content abou "Users Interact" and "Shares Info", or is that too trivial? Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ (talk) 01:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

They're not part of the main video game rating system, and they are adknowledged as being an aspect of the mobile-specific program. ViperSnake151  Talk  01:27, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

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This image needs to be replaced

This blurry, outdated raster image needs to be replaced with a clean, updated vector image.

This blurry raster image is outdated in that the ESRB have updated their icon descriptors in 2013. Just go to their homepage, and you will notice that their new labels have a different format from the image. I am not saying that the image should not be there; I am saying that there is a clean, updated vector version that can replace the image for benefits. This thread is just to raise the issue of the image. Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ (talk) 23:48, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

It is not a "blurry raster image". All raster images are "blurry" if rendered larger than their native size, and all vectors used on Wikipedia are rendered as raster for display in articles. ViperSnake151  Talk  18:12, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

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E = 6+.

Games rated E are actually suitable for those aged 6 and up. 108.66.232.14 (talk) 18:30, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Excuse me, where are you getting this from? Official ESRB description, right now, says "Generally suitable for all ages". ViperSnake151  Talk  21:55, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

The other description says "...for those aged 6 and up.". 108.66.232.14 (talk) 23:58, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Their website says "Content is generally suitable for all ages. May contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language." If you have something that says otherwise, you will need to provide a source. Otherwise we are done here. - SummerPhD^v2.0 00:09, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

[1] states that games rated E are generally suitable for those aged 6 and up. 108.66.232.14 (talk) 00:26, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Their official site says otherwise. - SummerPhD^v2.0 00:40, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Province by province and country by country table

Just for the sake of a sample, here is the country-by-country table from the PEGI Article:

Country	Status	Local system
Albania	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Austria	PEGI is legally adopted and enforceable in the regions of Vienna and Kärnten. In the latter region, USK labels are also allowed. Represented in the PEGI Council.
Belgium	Officially supports PEGI, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Bosnia/Herzegovina	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Bulgaria	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Croatia	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Cyprus	Officially supports PEGI, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Czech Republic	Officially supports PEGI, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Denmark	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Estonia	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Finland	In Finland, games with PEGI ratings are exempt from mandatory classification with national age symbols. Both classifications are enforced by the penal code. Represented in the PEGI Council.	KAVI
France	France is adopting legislation to make classification of video games with age labels mandatory. Represented in the PEGI Council.
Greece	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Germany	USK system is adopted and enforced. PEGI is not formally recognised, although PEGI labelling can be found on games along with the USK rating. Not represented on the PEGI Council.	USK
Hungary	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Iceland	PEGI is officially supported and age classifications are mandatory for video games by law.
Ireland	PEGI ratings are exempt from mandatory classification by IFCO, which adopts PEGI. IFCO is still legally empowered to ban certain video game content from the market. Represented in the PEGI Council.
Israel	PEGI has been adopted by law as the mandatory classification system for video games in Israel.
Italy	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Kosovo	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Latvia	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Lithuania	Lithuanian legislation has adopted PEGI which is exempt from mandatory classification with national age symbols. Both classifications are enforced by the penal code as of Nov 2010.
Luxembourg	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Macedonia	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Malta	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, PEGI is the legally enforceable system for game classification in Malta since January 2016.
Moldova	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Montenegro	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Netherlands	PEGI is officially adopted and legislation is in place to enforce age classification in shops where video games are sold.
Norway	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Poland	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, and there are intentions to support PEGI as a self-regulatory system.
Portugal	PEGI has officially been adopted by the Portuguese Classification Board IGAC.	IGAC
Quebec	Not an independent country but a Canadian Province. Nevertheless, it is the only entity in the Americas to use the PEGI system.	ESRB
Romania	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Russia
Serbia	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
Slovakia	Slovak media law obliges distributors to add national age labels to products (generally using stickers).
Slovenia	Officially supports PEGI, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Spain	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Sweden	Officially supports PEGI and is represented in the PEGI Council, but there is no specific legislative basis.
Switzerland	Switzerland is preparing national legislation to make classification of video games with age labels legally binding.
Turkey	De facto use of the PEGI labels, no specific legislative basis or official support.
United Kingdom	PEGI is the legally enforceable system for game classification in the UK since 30 July 2012. Has official support for PEGI, and is represented in the PEGI Council.

My suggestion is to create a similar table for this Article. For this new table, I recommend that we list Canadian Provinces separately, followed by single entries each for the United States of America and Mexico. The rationale for this is that Canada has all provinces except one (Quebec) using ESRB, whereas the USA and Mexico both use ESRB nationwide.

In order to fill such a table, however, we need information on the legal status of the ESRB system in each province and country. I have a feeling that in most territories AO is the only rating legally enforceable rather than strictly voluntary, but we still need sources on each Canadian Province (minus Quebec, which uses PEGI) and then the USA and Mexico.

Let's all hunt down such sources! Once we have the sources for the "Status" Column, we can then build the table. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 04:17, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

...It can't hurt to make it include sources that others have linked to in Talk. Admittedly not necessary for a Talk Page, but it can't hurt anything, especially when codes in my other New Section post created a bot-generated list anyway.

Tags:

Signed: The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 04:48, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

References

@The Mysterious El Willstro: We don't usually add references sections to talk pages, since if the page gets archived, there is no guarantee that the refs section will be archived at the same time as the thread to which it relates, nor even that they will be put into the same archive page. Instead, it is conventional to add a {{reflist-talk}} to the thread which contains the referenced content - typically this might be just after the post which contains that material, as here; but if there are several such posts, putting it at the bottom of the same thread may be better. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:18, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I thought of that, but this Talk Page hasn't been archived in a long time. Anyway, Done. Also, I merged these 2 Sections since I created both of them anyway. Plus that one led to this one. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 20:52, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I removed Quebec since they don't use PEGI, all games there use the ESBB ratings.--64.229.167.158 (talk) 03:00, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

That's not what the sourced information in the rest of the Article says. Re-adding, since the table is supposed to be a summary of the rest of the Article, not a set of new assertions. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 03:10, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

That was meant to cut off a tangent, not close the whole Section. Feel free to comment below here. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 04:04, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Is there a source for Quebec using PEGI? Its the standard for the European Union as far as I know, and if you walk into game stores in Quebec the rating on the boxes is ESRB and the broadcasting region is NTSC. Most of the games sold in the Americas have English, French and Spanish included as playable languages. Arkroyale (talk) 06:52, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@Arkroyale: we (and by "we" I mean all Wikipedia editors, not just those on this talk page) must stop including "Latin America" (LA) within "North America" (NA) as has been done up to now in game-related article infoboxes, since the languages are different: English for the USA and Canada (except Quebec, where French is the official language, and Mexico, where Spanish is is the official language) while most of Latin America speaks Spanish, except Brazil where they speak Portuguese.--Fandelasketchup (talk) 15:14, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@Arkroyale: hNot only are languages different but release dates may be as well, as may the languages available (for example, we in Argentina got Halo: CE in English-only audio, while there were Spanish subtitles available, or we may get a game whose dub was intended for Spain, not Latin America, as was the case with all Harry Potter games or the PC versions of most Battlefield games up to and including Battlefield 4.) The same is true for campaign/single-player subtitles: sometimes we may get Latin American Spanish subtitles, other times European Spanish subtitles and yet other times we may get both audio and subtitles in English only. --Fandelasketchup (talk) 15:14, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@Arkroyale: Besides, the season a game is released in depends on which hemisphere we talk about, for example, a December release date may be winter in the Northern hemisphere but summer in the Southern hemisphere, and, furthermore, the same applies to the term "holiday season" on game announcement/release trailers: it may mean "winter holidays" in the Northern hemisphere but "summer holidays" in the Southern hemisphere. --Fandelasketchup (talk) 00:18, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

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Enforcement section

@ViperSnake151: You have twice restored the claim "As in the U.S., most retailers voluntarily enforce the ratings regardless" to the Entertainment_Software_Rating_Board#Enforcement section. I believe you are missing my point. I am not disputing the fact that retailers voluntarily enforce the ratings in the United States, but rather the claim that most retailers in the United States voluntarily enforce the ratings. This is clearly not a WP:BLUESKY claim because it is not easily verifiable what most retailers do. Neither do the sources corroborating the claim about Canada corroborate the claim about the United States from what I can tell. Neither does your response at User_talk:Betty_Logan#Re: ESRB. There are many voluntary ratings bodies around the world and most of them are not enforced by the majority of the retailers, therefore the article is overstating the claim. Yes, the ESRB might be mostly enforced voluntarily by retailers, but that is not the same as most retailers voluntarily enforcing the ratings. I believe you actually mean the former (which is corrborated earlier in the article) but the latter is unsubstantiated. If we just jiggled the words around a bit then the issue would be resolved. It's a very good article and I can see you play an important role in keeping it that way, so it would be great if we could make the wording accurate. Betty Logan (talk) 03:56, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Early childhood rating no longer used

The EC (Early Childhood) rating did not apply to any more games after 2012. The ESRB no longer lists it as a major rating on their Rating Information page.--MDPgamer97 (talk) 23:22, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I guess an "end year" needs to be added to the "since" column. Do you know which year it was discontinued? Betty Logan (talk) 23:47, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

You must have a secondary source. ViperSnake151  Talk  16:29, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

The ESRB's own website is sufficient to verify the rating has been deprecated, otherwise it would still be listed. However, many older games will still carry the rating so we need to determine when it was deprecated. Betty Logan (talk) 16:56, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

According to Wayback Machine, the last time the ESRB Ratings Guide page included the EC rating was the end of February 2018, and was taken off on March 1. However, it was still possible to search for software by that rating until the entire website was changed just three days ago, as of this writing. The last games to use the EC rating were Bubble Guppies and Team Umizoomi & Dora's Fantastic Flight, both of which were released for the Nintendo DS on November 6, 2012.--MDPgamer97 (talk) 23:32, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

So it was last used in 2012 and formally deprecated in 2018. I think we should perhaps go with the 2012 date in the actual table itself since that was when it was last used and add a note next to the date that can include the 2018 date along with these archive links as sources. Betty Logan (talk) 08:30, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Old ESRB Icons

Every other video game ratings board Wikipedia page seemingly includes images for the old icons that were used, usually with a beginning and end date. I'm not sure when they stopped using the old icons for the ESRB, but I feel that the old icons and especially the K-A rating, should maybe have images on this page. Should this be added, or is this a bad idea? MontztheMan 01:27, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Should we a separate table for discontinued ESRB ratings?

The diff will look something like this that separates the existing and discontinued ratings rather than combining them under one table. I invite other editors to comment if they believe the proposed changes should proceed or if the existing edits are fine and do not require changing. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.88.190.70 (talk • contribs) 21:15, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

If you think it helps I have no objections. Betty Logan (talk) 07:46, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion for a Rewrite

I believe the descriptions per rating are good and accurate, but I would like to make some small changes which can be seen here. I am asking if I could advance with the proposed changes indicated by the diffs or keep the current wording? Also, should we add for E10+ rating about the rating being the most recent (started in 2005) and how it serves as a bridge between Everyone (E) and Teen (T)? Thank you. (I don't know how to leave a signature as an IP sorry). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.88.190.70 (talk • contribs) 16:31, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia follows the WP:BRD principle: Be Bold, Revert if you disagree, and Discuss on the talk page to reach a resolution. In short, anyone has the right to make an edit and anyone has the right to revert (although if the reason is not obvious they should provide an edit summary). If you disagree with the revert or would like to suggest a compromise then you should initiate discussion on the talk page. You don't need to ask permission to edit, but your edits should respect Wikipedia's other core principles i.e. all facts and claims should be verifiable (by providing a source) and neutrally presented.

You can sign your name with four tildas i.e. ~~~~ produces Betty Logan (talk) 20:41, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

February 2022

For the AO-rating description, do you believe the wording should look something like this?. The problem I see with the current wording "The majority of AO-rated titles are adult video games, and received their ratings for their graphic sexual content" makes it sounds like this rating is reserved for pornographic video games. Previously, I added to the table that three video games were due to obscene violent content to make it sounds like the AO-rating should not be seen as pornographic or violent, but the content is solely aimed for adults. Should we change it to what I linked, or do you think it's fine the way it currently is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.46.149.126 (talk) 17:47, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

possible legal challenges to ESRB

It would appear that after having reviewed the U.S. Attorney's manual concerning the Sherman Antitrust act, that the ESRB would be an implementation of an illegal market allocation scheme which the courts have historically considered to be a per se criminal violation of the Sherman Antitrust act. have there been any legal challenges to the right of the ESRB to exist under antitrust law? If so, they should be covered in the article, because that particular area of law has significant impact on the industry. 98.178.191.34 (talk) 03:38, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Add Former Descriptors

Can you add former descriptors please? (e.g. Animated Violence). Cdmxm8807i8x (talk) 01:21, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Example game image

So, rather than just the rating symbol image, would it be worth adding a "front-and-back" picture of a video game case to show the way the ESRB information looks on an actual game? Mrman19 (talk) 18:32, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

That would create an issue with non-free content, since such an image will always be non free. The text block if the ESRB rating is uncopyrightable and thus sufficient for WP. Masem (t) 19:12, 15 April 2024 (UTC)