Original Gamer: "People have been critical of the ESRB as of late. Some consider their ratings as not sufficient enough to explain what games actually contain. Do they really need to go into detail or should parents do their job of being knowledgeable about video games?
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 ESRB rating is set to "T for Teen" due to "Blood, Drug Reference, Mild Language, and Violence" present in the title.
The Entertainment Software Ratings Board has published the God of War Ragnarok ESRB rating and rating summary.
The addition of in-game purchases is noteworthy as no other game in the series is listed as having these on the official ESRB website.
click bait
UPDATE: The ESRB introduced the “in-game purchases” label in 2020. It has been pointed out to us that its presence in relation to Nintendo Switch titles has been regarding the ability to purchase a Nintendo Switch Online subscription and not any DLC or other post-release content. We regret the confusion and appreciate those who’ve brought this to our attention.
Parents. The ESRB does its job. It's up to the parents (and retailers) to do theirs.
Definitely parents. The ESRB does it's job...it isn't up to them to prevent children from playing games. They put the appropriate warnings in place...it's up to parents and retailers to enforce that.
But I also think that perhaps more could be done to teach parents that ratings on a game box are just as important as ratings on any other media. I've seen so many parents in game stores buy their nagging kid a game, without even glancing at the rating, or even bothering to check what the game is about. There are too many parents that still see games as a kids' hobby, and don't realize just how far games have come in terms or depicting realism and violence/sex in the past fecade or so.
Parents, thats for sure, what i hate is when those parents that buy the game for their children and complain about the violence later on, i just wanna say "READ THE BOX"
My mom actually purchased God of War: Chain of Olympus (PSP) for my kid brother because one of his friend said it was a great game (Of course it is! But I'm talking about kids who are below 10 here).
So when I saw my kid brother playing the game, I said to my mom, did you know that game has some very explicit content? My mom was like shock and I showed her the back of the box with the ESRB rating on it.
Let's just say after that my brother went back to playing Naruto instead.
You people need to get real. I played Doom nonstop when I was 9 and I turned out just fine. I think they need to go by IQ instead of age. If your kid is stupid, make him read a book instead of playing a video game.