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An official report by the Federal Trade Commission to Congress showed that the video game industry has been able to reduce the amount of M-rated games sold to inappropriately aged gamers. In fact, since 2000, the amount of M-rated retail has been disallowed at the point-of-sale by a significant percentage, especially in major retail outlets.
This brings us to the other point of the ratings issue: the parents. As far as the report goes, it shows an increased amount of parents who are aware of the rating system established by the ESRB. 60% of them have agreed that the system does a good job of informing them about the violence in games, although 36% believe it doesn't do them any good at all.
What is consistent from the results of the report, however, is that parents are now more involved in the purchase of video games. As reported, 89% of surveyed parents and 83% of surveyed children have claimed that parents do involve themselves in a video game rental or purchase decision, while some 70% of parents have at least watched or played the most recent game purchased.
Conclusively, the report sees that the video game industry has done a good job with public announcements of ESRB ratings, compared with the music and movie industry. They recommend that the game industry, however, reconsiders the time and place to advertise their M-rated titles where audiences under 17 could be situated in, just as the movie and music industry continues to do.
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