Publishers create a ratings board rather than await legislation

What happened

The board was created by the publishers' new trade association after congressional hearings made clear that some labeling scheme was coming either way. Its design borrowed from film and music practice while trying to avoid their weaknesses: ratings assigned by trained reviewers rather than by the publisher, applied to a finished product, printed on the front of the box, with content descriptors on the back explaining what had earned the category. Submissions included recorded footage of a game's strongest material.

Adoption depended on retailers, and they moved fast. Large chains agreed to stock only rated products and, over time, to check identification for the most restrictive category, which gave the labels commercial force no statute had granted them. Competing schemes proposed by other trade groups faded quickly. Publishers accepted the arrangement partly because one national standard was easier to work with than a patchwork of state laws, and partly because the alternative was unknowable.

Criticism has come from both directions ever since. Some argue the board sits too close to the companies it rates and is too permissive about marketing; others say the categories are blunt and that a single label cannot describe a game that changes as players make choices. Later disputes over downloadable content, purchasable prize boxes and online interaction stretched the model further. Surveys of retailer compliance have generally found it enforced more consistently than film or music equivalents.

The world at the time

Senate hearings the previous December had closed with a demand for a labeling system and an implicit deadline. Consoles carried no content information, one hardware maker had introduced its own ratings while the other enforced private standards, and several trade groups were pushing rival schemes. Games were selling to teenagers in numbers that made the absence of labeling conspicuous.

What it changed

Ratings became a routine line in development and marketing budgets, and the most restrictive category acquired consequences severe enough that publishers edit content to avoid it. Comparable bodies emerged elsewhere, and a European system later consolidated national schemes. When states tried to give the categories legal force, the courts declined, leaving voluntary enforcement in place.