Saw this today and thought it was interesting.
Most surprising was ESRB claiming 78% of parents regularly use ESRB ratings and 86% use parental controls on their kid’s console.
Maybe it’s just that parents have gotten more technical and aware of bad content but it felt like every single child was playing mature games like GTA V back in the early 2010s. Nobody cared what kids were playing.
Another shocking stat was Dragon Ball Sparking Zero being the #5 top grossing PC/Console game in 2024. I know that series is popular but… How? There’s been very little buzz around it.
I am aware of classifications and content descriptions. I’m not in US so the ESRB are not directly relevant but my local body does something similar.
I find the actual classifications to be a bit conservative so treat them all as advisory and make my own decisions. For example my son beat these (on easy) at four years old, I don’t think we would have enjoyed them as much if we waited until fifteen:
On the other end of the scale I can use these descriptions to see that while Saints Row (2022) is tamer than GTA5 it is still going to have content thats a bit rough for an eight year old:
Parental controls are another question but I use then for time limits on his tablet and content restrictions on consoles and streaming services.
The way I have parental controls set up he has access to everything M or lower but MA15+ or higher requires a conversation.
They help inform my decisions but at the end of the day we are making our own choices within our household.