I know it's been a couple weeks since the ESRB added new content descriptors to its rating system, but I just want to say how glad I am that they finally decided to qualify the different types of violence present in games. Too often beforehand I would pick up a game in a store and find the ESRB rating of E (Everyone): Violence pretty confusing. Violence was okay for everyone?

Let's check out the ESRB database tallies on the different types of questionable game content:

Drug use: 15 titles
Strong Sexual Content: 52 titles
Use of Tobacco and Alcohol: 62 titles
Strong Language: 154 titles
Violence: 1077

People say that sex sells, but the numbers would seem to indicate that violence sells even better. Hopefully the new ratings, which have less than 10 titles each thus far, will help parents decide what kind of violence is right for children. I'm hoping that the ESRB doesn't stop here, and that different types of questionable content are described in even finer detail, so that the ESRB icon takes up half of the game box and has descriptors like:

Blood & Gore: Intestines, Some Lung
Strong Sexual Content: Asian Teen Blowjobs
Use of Alcohol: Molson Light
Language: "Fuck", "Dickweed", "Schlong", "Puppyhumper"
Mature Humor: Farting, Turds, Obscure Jane Austen Reference
Intense Violence: This one dude gets shot in the face, and this other guy gets totally cut in half
Nudity: Awesome

That will certainly help me make better, more informed decisions about my game purchases. It'd be even better if they added a content descriptor for Sucks: Contains Shitty Gameplay, but I imagine that's some ways away.

(Personally, I'm really curious about ImaginAction, which is the only M (Mature) rated game which has Edutainment. What kind of edutainment gets an M rating? Especially when there are no other descriptors? Maybe it's a voting simulation game.)