The Short Names

The FTC recently gave the video game industry the equivalent of a gold star in terms of how it regulates the way games are sold and advertised to kids—finding that its self-regulation (largely the ESRB ratings) is “the strongest” of the three major entertainment sectors: video games, movies and music.

But the Commission did say that gaming companies need to do more to keep ads for Mature-themed games from showing up on sites that “disproportionately attract” kids and teens—and that better regulation of mobile games, in particular, should be one of the industry’s main goals moving forward. That’s mostly because the ESRB ratings are geared toward PC and console games—not mobile titles—not to mention the fact that the mobile game sales pipeline is extremely fragmented.

“The proliferation of game applications for mobile devices provides challenges – for example, some companies do not provide any rating system for games available on their networks,” the report said. Apple’s App Store, with its age-specific ratings and full content descriptions, is one of the most informative, parent-friendly mobile game sales platforms; Nokia (NYSE: NOK), too, has age and content ratings, but AT&T (NYSE: T), Sprint (NYSE: S) and Verizon offer none (per GamesOnDeck).

Another issue the FTC raised was that there’s “no consistent system of age-based parental controls for these applications”—meaning that there’s really no way for parents to keep their kids from buying and downloading Mature games without permission. (Parents can buy their kids voice- or text-only plans that make it harder for them to access games at all, but in most cases, they’d only find out whether their child downloaded games after the fact—when they saw the data charges on the next month’s bill). The Commission said wireless carriers now had the responsibility for providing some kind of unified parental controls.