I read a fascinating/disturbing article on Kotaku recently (http://kotaku.com/i-sold-too-many-copies-of-gta-v-to-parents-who-didnt-g-1371011511) about parents buying GTA V for their young children. I know not all gamers agree with Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings – personally, I think some ratings are spot on and others are ridiculous. Regardless, the ratings are there as a guide to help parents (and kids) decide what games are appropriate given the age of the gamer.

Most console players know that the Wii is geared toward kids, while PS3 and Xbox have a slightly older target audience. Here, I show that trend using the ESRB’s database of ratings. I also included PC games and mobile apps for comparison. Then, using the suggested minimum ages associated with the ratings, I calculated the average minimum age for each gaming platform.

Not surprisingly, Wii has the youngest average minimum age for its games (8.22) among consoles. PS3’s average (10.79) is just below Xbox’s (11.14). The PC average (9.15) is slightly higher than the Wii average. App games, which are usually more simplistic than console and pc games, have the youngest average target audience (6.85). Whether this is a reflection on how kids are first starting to play video games (on their phones or iPads, rather than on consoles) is beyond the scope of these data, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case.

I also filtered the ESRB database for games that contained sex (sexuality/nudity) and violence (violence/blood/gore). Using this approach, it’s clear that violence is much more common than sex in video games. Among the systems, the PS3 and Xbox 360 are very similar; of course, many of the games are cross platform (released on more than one system). Wii and PC have quite similar percentages as well. Apps are much less likely to contain sex and/or violence.

Data source: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/search.jsp