While the black-and-white insignia of the ESRB is a familiar sight on retail game boxes, the iconic… icons of the non-profit rating organization are often less visible for digital games and content. The ESRB will seek to remedy this oversight with an expansion of its digital rating system, coming soon.
The new system will not replace the existing Content Ratings and Content Descriptors that gamers are familiar with, but will instead add additional descriptors that tell players what roles a game or downloadable content fulfills in the digital space. These roles range from using your location information via GPS to allowing players to interact with one another over an Internet connection. Much of this functionality is already understood by experienced gamers, but the digital ratings system hopes to make this information more visible to general consumers.
The ESRB’s expanded digital ratings system is free for developers, and ratings can be easily assigned via survey. The ratings will begin showing up for PlayStation Network titles (along with other platforms) very soon.