The ESRB should be combined with the RSAC IMHO.

[cheater87]

For those who do not know about the RSAC ratings.

It came before the ESRB and was for PC games. It had a picture of a bomb for violence, a hand covering an eye for nudity and sex and an exclamation point for language. It had a thermometer going from 1 to 4 and thats how you could tell how much of what content was in the game. I think an age rating being added would of made this work better then it did.

Have that type of content rating with the ESRB ratings and you will have a pretty good system. :)

[beemoh]

Surely the thermometers for each of the contentious elements supplants the need for an age?

At the moment the ratings are (and I'm paraphrasing here) "This game is for 18s-and-up because: sex", making the violence or the swearing irrelevant- all the swearing or violence in the world isn't going to up the rating, nor is a lack of it going to lower it.

If, however, you're shown that they do this many swears, that much violence or the other many sexings, then you don't need an age as such- just the knowledge that the game contains too many/too few swears for your child.

[ezacharyk]

I would want to stay away from symbols. They are annoying. Don't want them. I would much rather have the easy to decipher text descriptions.

[Mark of Cain]

The last thing needed are vague symbols that justify the complaints.