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Way back when Mortal Kombat was still seen as shocking to many, the ESRB was designed to allow parents to have a way to regulate what violent content their children were exposed to. Originally, many gamers didn’t feel it was necessary, but as time went on and scandal after scandal erupted over violent video game content, most of us have come to the realization that we’re better off with the ESRB than without it. Of course, now we live in an age of mobile gaming, and there are new scandals brewing. Children with smartphones are able to download whatever sexy video games they want, and the only ratings system they have to go by is whatever is implemented by the phone OS developers (in this case Apple for iPhones and Google for Android devices). Well, both Apple and Google think they are just fine without the ESRB. 
Apple declined to comment on the situation, but this is what Christopher Katsaros, a Google spokesman, had to say in an email, as reported by Bloomberg Businessweek: “We’ve put a lot of effort into Android Market’s rating system, which now works well globally. While we support other systems, we think it’s best for Android users and developers to stick with Android’s existing ratings.” By Angelo M. D’Argenio |