Only 5% of all Games in 2010 Were ‘M’ Rated

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) recently posted the percentages of games released in 2010 based on their ratings. Some might be surprised to find out that only 5% of all games released last year received an “M” rating. Next to “Early Childhood” which came in at 1%, Mature rated games made up the smallest percentage of games released in 2010.

The largest percentage of games released last year were titles that received the rating of “E” (for everyone) followed by “E 10+” and “T”, coming in at 55%, 18% and 21% respectively. So what can you take from this? Not much in my opinion. The Wii and DS always have an enormous about of “E” rated games because that’s their target audience. Then take into account the Kinect from Microsoft who were trying to tap into that market and you’ll get even more games with the “E” rating.

Not to mention the fact that “M” rated games often times sell very well. Halo: Reach, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption are all Mature rated games and all sold extremely well. In fact three of those titles made up the Top 5 selling titles in 2010. As you can see though Mature rated titles might have only made up 5% of the games in 2010, they were easily the most popular titles and I don’t see that trend coming to an end anytime soon.

[Source: news.bigdownload.com]