ESRB ratings

[Luckspeare]

And another question.  I've noticed someone start to initiate removals of ESRB ratings for games where there is no entry in the ESRB ratings lookup on the official ESRB website.  Is this policy?

Because I've *definitely* noticed that the ESRB database is very, very incomplete.  And it subjects publishers and storefronts to legal liability for misrepresentation to falsely display an ESRB rating.  I'd say Steam is a fairly authoritative source for this sort of information, publishers/developers provide that info to a storefront with their own interests in mind, and with legal liability always possible.

I suspect we are going to be deleting a LOT of ESRB ratings unnecessarily if we keep going by this method, and I don't think it's a good idea.  I've actually e-mailed ESRB directly to ask them about this, and I'll share the answer here when I get it.  For now, unless we get a bombshell that there is a huge scandal of publishers and developers getting away with falsely displaying ESRB ratings on the world's foremost digital storefront, I'd suggest holding off on create a bunch of moderations for this.

The most recent example I saw was "The Adventures of: Tree", which the Steam store page shows is E rated, but which doesn't come up on the ESRB's web site ratings lookup.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/354860/The_Adventures_of_Tree/

https://www.esrb.org/

[C-Beats]

If the game has an ESRB rating listed on the Steam page it is ok to use that rating. The only time I could see changing an ESRB rating from what the developer has put on their page is if the following occurs:

1) the rating changes on the Steam page
2) the rating found on ESRB rating is more strict/severe than listed on Steam

Typically with rating systems the company has to register the game for consideration with the review board of that entity, but if they do not hear back within a given period of time they are allowed to use the rating they believe they would get until they hear back from the review board saying they no longer can. There are also a LOT of developers (especially indie) that self-regulate and apply their own rating and don't submit any official requests to ESRB directly (which is probably why their database seems pretty empty in comparison). I would rather us use the rating the developers give then none at all since they should be pretty close to accurate. Accurate ESRB ratings on the product page influence a LOT and so it's pretty rare that dev's are blatantly marking their product wrong.