The Entertainment Software Rating Board is the body whose letters appear on game boxes in North America: E for Everyone, T for Teen, M for Mature. It was not the government’s idea. The American games industry created it in 1994, within a year of the day two senators, Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl, held a hearing on Mortal Kombat and Night Trap and warned that Congress would act if the industry did not (see the 1993 congressional hearings). The trade body the companies formed, the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), set up the ESRB as an independent board, and its first ratings reached the shops for Christmas 1994. What it offered Congress was information for parents instead of a law.
Fast facts
- Founded: 1994, by the Interactive Digital Software Association
- First director: Dr Arthur Pober, formerly of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus
- First ratings: Christmas 1994
- Categories in 1994: Early Childhood (3+), Kids to Adults (6+), Teen (13+), Mature (17+), Adults Only (18+)
- Changes: Kids to Adults became Everyone (1998); Everyone 10+ added (2005); Early Childhood retired (2018)
- Legal force: none; it is voluntary, enforced by console makers and shops
How it started
Before the ESRB, Sega’s games carried ratings and Nintendo’s did not. In the summer of 1993 Sega set up its own Videogame Rating Council, a panel of experts in education, child development, psychology and film, whose labels (GA for general audiences, MA-13, and MA-17 for “young adults and those mature enough to appreciate adult themes”) appeared on Sega’s boxes and in its advertisements. Sega expected fewer than 1 per cent of games to be rated MA-17. Nintendo relied on its own content rules instead, which is why its Mortal Kombat had grey “sweat” where the arcade game had blood. At the Senate hearing of December 1993 Sega’s Bill White used that difference against Nintendo’s Howard Lincoln: Nintendo had taken out the blood but sold the fighting to all ages, while Sega’s version carried a rating for 13 and over.
After the hearing the rivals had to work together. Their committee, chaired by Jack Heistand of Electronic Arts, promised the Senate on 4 March 1994 that a rating system would be ready by the end of the year. The IDSA was formed in April with members including Sega, Nintendo, Sony, Acclaim, Atari, Capcom, Crystal Dynamics, Electronic Arts, Konami, Philips, Viacom New Media and Virgin Interactive, and on 29 July it presented the ESRB to a joint Congressional hearing. Under Pober, each new game would be assessed by three raters “who have no ties to the industry”, and the board would assign a rating symbol and a description of who the game was suitable for. Sega Visions told its readers the ratings would be in place by Christmas, and that about 45 per cent of the Christmas releases might carry them. Nintendo Power printed the five categories with its own glosses: Early Childhood was “Gerber meets Barney”, Kids to Adults allowed “mild violence, Koopa stomping”, and Adults Only covered “sex, drugs, profanity and goat worship”.
A rival scheme for computer games
The ESRB began as a console industry project, and many PC publishers did not like it. Computer Gaming World complained in June 1994 that the plan had been drawn up “without significant input by personal computer-based publishers” and that reviewing every game in full before release would delay disk-based games and cost players money. The magazine had been calling for voluntary content labels since 1990, and it preferred a different model. In October 1994 the Recreational Software Advisory Council (RSAC) launched ratings that gave no age at all. Publishers answered a questionnaire, and the label showed a “thermometer” from 1 to 4 for violence, nudity and sex, and language, with a short description. At the launch Doom was the example: 3 for violence (“Blood and Gore”) and 1 for language (“Mild Expletives”), for its use of the word “hell”.
The ESRB won. By July 1999 Computer Gaming World’s editor wrote that RSAC’s labels were used on “less than 5 percent of new games” and that most games were rated by the ESRB, whose age categories he thought told parents too little about what was in the box.
Changing the categories
The ratings have changed several times since 1994:
| Year | Change |
|---|---|
| 1994 | Five categories: EC (3+), K-A (6+), T (13+), M (17+), AO (18+), with content descriptors |
| 1998 | Kids to Adults renamed E, Everyone, still for ages 6 and up |
| 2005 | E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) added between E and T |
| 2013 | The International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) incorporated; its ratings reached online shops such as the Nintendo eShop and Google Play in 2015 |
| 2018 | Early Childhood retired: so few games needed it that E covered them |
| 2020 | An “In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)” notice added for games that sell randomised items |
Maximum PC explained in 2005 that E10+ filled “the gaping chasm” between Everyone and Teen, for games such as “racing games with extreme crashes”. The ESRB said of Early Childhood that there were “SO few games that fit the criteria” and that E could almost always be applied to them.
The ratings carry no legal force, but the top one works almost like a ban. The Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine noted in 1999 that console manufacturers had “yet to allow an AO-rated game”, and by 2005 major American retailers, EGM reported, would not sell Adults Only titles at all.
Hot Coffee
That became the ESRB’s biggest test in 2005. Patrick Wildenborg, a modder, found a sexual minigame, “Hot Coffee”, in the code of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which was rated M. After first deflecting questions, Rockstar acknowledged that the scenes, though ordinary players could not reach them, were on the disc. Senator Hillary Clinton called for an enquiry into why the game had not been rated AO, and members of Congress asked for a Federal Trade Commission investigation of Rockstar’s parent company. The ESRB investigated and re-rated the game AO. Shops took it off their shelves, Rockstar stopped production and began work on a version without the code, and the parent company cut its quarterly earnings forecast by about $50 million.
The ESRB’s president, Patricia Vance, explained the decision to EGM: “The Hot Coffee minigame is explicit, with or without the nudity.” The rules stayed the same with one addition: publishers now had to disclose all content on a disc that bore on the rating, “playable or not”.
Britain: voluntary labels and the law
Britain’s system grew out of the same pressure in the same year, but took a different form. In April 1994 the European Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) introduced voluntary age labels in four bands, 0 to 10, 11 to 14, 15 to 17 and 18 plus, which its 60 member companies could print on their boxes. “The classification is not legally binding,” ST Format noted, “so it is up to the individual retailers to prevent younger children buying games which are unsuitable.” The magazine suspected the scheme was a way to put off a compulsory one.
Unlike America, Britain already had a law that could apply to games. Most games were exempt from the Video Recordings Act, but one with gross violence, sexual activity or other content the Act named had to be classified by the British Board of Film Classification like a film, and its certificate was legally binding. Edge noted in 1998 that Grand Theft Auto and Carmageddon had both been given 18 certificates by law. A reader of PC Zone summed up the arrangement in 2001: “The ELSPA rating is advisory and voluntary. The BBFC is legally binding.”
In April 2003 ELSPA’s labels gave way to PEGI, the Pan European Game Information system, used in sixteen countries and administered by the Netherlands Institute for the Classification of Audiovisual Media, with pictograms for content: Edge listed a spider for horror, a syringe for drugs and a clenched fist for violence. Edge stressed in 2004 that PEGI was voluntary too: “It is neither compulsory for a publisher to apply for a PEGI rating nor carry the rating on packaging.” That changed on 30 July 2012, when the Video Standards Council took over rating games in the UK under PEGI and the 12, 16 and 18 ratings became legally enforceable. Selling a game rated 12, 16 or 18 to a younger child became a criminal offence. No such law survived in America: in 2011 the US Supreme Court struck down a Californian law against selling violent games to minors, ruling that games are protected speech under the First Amendment.
Sources
- Sega Visions, August/September 1993, p. 88: the Videogame Rating Council, MA-17 and the 1 per cent estimate.
- Sega Visions, April/May 1994, pp. 8–12: the Videogame Rating Council and its ratings; the industry committee, Jack Heistand and the announcement of 4 March.
- Sega Visions, October/November 1994, p. 4: “New, Industrywide Rating System Unveiled For Video Games”; the hearing of 29 July; the IDSA’s members; Arthur Pober and the ESRB; the three raters; the 45 per cent estimate; the five categories.
- Nintendo Power issue 65, October 1994, p. 107: the five categories and their ages.
- David Sheff, Game Over: Press Start to Continue (GamePress, 1999), with new chapters by Andy Eddy: Bill White, the MA-13 rating and Nintendo’s Mortal Kombat at the hearing; the IDSA in April 1994.
- Computer Gaming World issue 115, February 1994, p. 8: the magazine’s call for voluntary labels since 1990. Issue 119, June 1994, p. 12: Johnny L. Wilson on the plan and PC publishers. Issue 125, December 1994, p. 14: the RSAC ratings and Doom. Issue 180, July 1999, editorial: RSAC on “less than 5 percent of new games”, and Wilson on the ESRB’s categories.
- Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, September 1999, ratings guide: E replaced K-A “last year”; no AO-rated console games.
- Code Vault, December 2001: “the retired Kids-to-Adults rating icon, which is equivalent to today’s rating, Everyone”.
- Maximum PC, May 2005, news: the new E10+ rating.
- Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 196, October 2005, p. 68, Jennifer Tsao, “No nookie allowed”: Hot Coffee, Patrick Wildenborg, the AO re-rating, the retailers, the FTC, the earnings forecast, and Patricia Vance. Edge issue 153, September 2005, p. 75: Hillary Clinton’s call for an enquiry. PC Magazine, 20 September 2005, p. 11: shops pulling the game.
- ST Format issue 57, April 1994, p. 7, “Big Brother is watching you”: ELSPA’s scheme, its four age bands and the Video Recordings Act.
- Edge issue 66, Christmas 1998, p. 81: ELSPA, the Video Standards Council and the Video Recordings Act; Grand Theft Auto and Carmageddon’s 18 certificates.
- PC Zone issue 105, August 2001, p. 34: reader’s letter on ELSPA and BBFC ratings.
- Edge issue 144, Christmas 2004, pp. 47–49, “Classified”: PEGI’s pictograms, ELSPA from 1994 until March 2003, PEGI from April 2003, and the voluntary status of both.
- Edge issue 232, October 2011, p. 32: Steven Poole on the Supreme Court’s ruling against the Californian law.
- ESRB, “History” (web, secondary): five categories and content descriptors in 1994, K-A to E in 1998, E10+ in 2005, IARC in 2013 and its online shops from 2015, the In-Game Purchases notice in 2020. https://www.esrb.org/history/
- ESRB (@ESRBRatings), reply on X, April 2019 (web, secondary): the retirement of Early Childhood “last year”. https://x.com/ESRBRatings/status/1120695817340321794
- UK Government press release, “New rules to better protect children from inappropriate video game content”, 27 July 2012 (web, secondary): the Video Standards Council, PEGI 12, 16 and 18 and the Video Recordings (Labelling) Regulations 2012. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-rules-to-better-protect-children-from-inappropriate-video-game-content