Student Demographics - The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game - page 204

Figure 12.1
Growing up in the Gamer Generation.

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Their rating system is the video game industry s equivalent of the Motion

Picture Association of America, which rates movies. Even though compliance is
voluntary, almost all retail games sold in the United States and Canada are rated
by the ESRB. As their website states,

“

Many retailers, including most major
chains, have policies to only stock or sell games that carry an ESRB rating, and
most console manufacturers will only permit games that have been rated by
ESRB to be published for their platforms. They offer ratings from Early
Childhood to Mature. �

Of the 1,638 ratings assigned by ESRB in 2010:

1% received an EC (Early Childhood) rating.

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55% received an E (Everyone) rating.

n

18% received an E10 þ (Everyone 10 þ ) rating.

n

21% received a T (Teen) rating.

n

5% received an M (Mature) rating.

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The ESRB is also a great source for statistics about the video game industry. I
have been using the term to be media independent. However, the

ESRB breaks the industry into two categories, reserving

“ video game �

“ video games for games