Why MPAA Rating Descriptors are Infinite Compared to the ESRB’s Finite Descriptors

The rating icons of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) have become synonymous with the film and gaming industries today. As a person in my mid-twenties, it seems that becoming familiar with the ratings have helped shape what I do and create today. Drillimation Systems, the company I run, is a youth-focused entertainment company. Age-appropriate content is our specialty, and I’ve always wanted to create stuff intended for a parent to share with a child.

Speaking of the gaming industry, 2024 marks thirty years since the establishment of the Entertainment Software Rating Board. It is an important milestone for any aspect of life such as birthdays, marriages, and successful companies and brands. As gaming culture and society has changed over the past three decades, successful franchises have been hard-earned and special.

The ESRB was established over mounting calls for censorship or U.S. government intervention. 1994 was a transformative year for the video game industry in response to changing trends in American life the decade before. MTV had launched, rap became mainstream, cartoons and anime got edgier, and of course, Nintendo came in to provide the foundation for the entire video game industry today. As directors and producers were pushing boundaries, some politicians and advocacy groups weren’t thrilled with certain forms of subject matter.

The goal is to protect children from offensive imagery, and the ESRB launched a dynamic program that would provide parents a reliable and easily understandable system to help make informed playing choices for their children, while protecting the First Amendment rights of game developers.

Over those three decades since, the rating system became credible and accepted among audiences, and today remains the industry standard for industry self-regulation. These ratings have been successful because it maintained the trust and confidence of parents. One way was to appoint game raters who are also parents and reflect diverse backgrounds from every corner of the country. They have continued aligning the ratings with the views of parents by conducting surveys and listening to feedback from them.

Given America’s diversity, there are voices from all views and sides. On average, the ESRB rates over 4,000 games a year. An overwhelming majority of games are accepted by developers and players without controversy. The internet and other technological advances have also led to the evolution of ratings, leading to weekly rating designations in print media becoming obsolete. Players today are more likely to look up game information on the website of the ESRB and others, mobile apps, and even kiosks.

When the industry jumped from 2D to 3D, and eventually virtual reality, the ESRB has always been ready to rate whatever may show up. As long as people continue to seek out interactive stories in arcades, their living room televisions, or the palm-sized screens of their phones or tablets, it is the ESRB’s job to support and educate them. Parents are the most important decision makers in society. As long as they can keep their faith, they will position themselves in the future as technology evolves.

Why Descriptors are Important

Since the establishment of the ESRB and in response to feedback from parents, all games rated by the ESRB are assigned descriptors. They are unique to each game and are decided by the raters the moment after a game is screened in order to place their impression of elements at a specific rating level.

Descriptors fall into a handful of categories, including violence, profanity, sexuality, substance use, and gambling. One category that the MPAA covers but not the ESRB is thematic elements, which are factors not covered by the other categories but could still nonetheless be objectionable, such as accidents, death, sexual assault, incest, abortion, alcoholism, illness, family discord, or coming of age issues. The MPAA’s list of descriptors is infinite, but not the ESRB’s list. The ESRB has sure adopted a couple of the MPAA’s descriptors that have been used for years, but changes in game trends have led to an uptick in certain terms. For example, the rise of the Soulslike genre with Dark Souls has led to more frequent use of “disturbing/bloody/grisly images”, “strong terror”, and “brutal violence”. Below is a comparison of the MPAA’s most commonly used descriptors and their ESRB equivalents:

MPAA Descriptor	ESRB Equivalent
[Brutal] sexual assault [sequence]	Sexual Violence
Bloody [images]	Blood and Gore
Grisly/disturbing images	Intense Violence Blood and Gore
Combat action/war images	Intense Violence
Sci-fi action/peril	[Intense] Violence
Horror	[Intense] Violence Blood and Gore
Action	[Intense] Violence Blood and Gore
Adventure	[Intense] Violence Blood and Gore
Brief language	[Mild/Strong] Language
Pervasive language [throughout]	Strong Language
Racial epithets	Strong Language
Nude Images (graphic)	Nudity
Nudity (brief, partial, or graphic)	[Partial] Nudity
Crude sexual references	Sexual Content/Mature Humor
Teen sexuality	[Strong] Sexual Content
Drinking	Use of Alcohol
Underage/teen partying	Use of Alcohol
Tobacco	Use of Tobacco
Historical smoking	Use of Tobacco
Glamorized smoking	Use of Tobacco
Smoking [throughout]	Use of Tobacco
Tobacco imagery or references	Tobacco reference
Suggestive	Suggestive Themes
Mature	Mature Humor
Rude humor	Crude Humor

In some cases, a game’s unique content may require the creation of a new descriptor. The MPAA does it often, but rarely for the ESRB.