Recently the ESRB has announced that it will start doing mobile ratings, starting in 2012, but it may be for nothing as Apple and Google will have no part of it. The ESRB has been keeping game ratings private and providing parents with adequate information on what games they shouldn’t and shouldn’t buy their kids. Google feels it’s current marketplace ratings system is just fine.
Apple did not provide a comment as to why they would not be using the ESRB to rate the games coming to iOS devices, but I suspect they are also content with their own system. Since Apple’s app Store and the Android marketplace are the leading games source for smartphones, it will make this ESRB announcement nearly irrelevant.
Though Microsoft has yet to have any sort of ratings for its own XBox Live Windows Phone 7 games, so perhaps this is where the ESRB will find its place among the mobile games industry, and keep children safe from the blood and violence, at least until they find mommy’s credit card.
