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Video game ratings go mobile
Last week, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) released its free iPhone app, giving parents instant, on-the-spot access to its new rating summaries.
The rating summaries, which are available on ESRB’s web site but are not displayed on game boxes, give parents a detailed explanation of the content that factored into a game rating. The ESRB hopes that parents will access the summaries right from the store or whenever they are faced with making an appropriate buying decision for their kids.
“Rating summaries provide just the kind of specific, descriptive information that parents find useful when having to make a decision about whether a game is suitable for their child,” said ESRB president Patricia Vance in a press release. “This new rating search app puts all this information at parents’ fingertips when they need it most, right at the store.”
The new rating search app is available for free via the iTunes App Store and offers access to ESRB rating information for over 18,000 titles. Rating summaries are available for all games rated since July 1, 2008, which means that most of the games that will appear on kids’ Holiday wish lists will be covered.
To educate parents about ratings, rating summaries and its new app, the ESRB has developed a series of TV and radio public service announcements that will air nationwide in coming weeks.
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