Why don the ESRB raters actually play the games they rate?
ESRB raters do not actually play the games they rate for many reasons. First, since video games that ship to retail stores must do so with the ESRB rating having already been assigned and printed on the product itself, game publishers oftentimes have to submit games to the ESRB for rating prior to their having been fully tested or completed in order to meet manufacturing and advertising deadlines. Consequently, at the point when games are submitted for rating, they may be buggy,” making it difficult, if not impossible, for a rater to play the game from start to finish to find all of its pertinent and extreme content. That is why publishers that submit games to the ESRB for rating are legally required to disclose all pertinent content in their game, including the most extreme, so that raters can and do assign an accurate rating. Secondly, many games have upwards of 50 hours of gameplay, thereby requiring each rater to play a game through as part of the rating process would not only be a
