The Age Rating Is Just the Beginning: A Parent's Guide to Buying Video Games

Your child wants a new video game. Maybe it’s all the rage at school or a new release they learned about online. The cover art and age rating may give you some idea of what’s in the game, but do those details tell you whether the game is actually a good fit for your child? That's not always an easy question to answer.

Those first impressions are only part of the story. Two games with the same rating can offer vastly different experiences depending on their online features, in-game purchases, social interactions, and themes. Some encourage creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration, while others are designed to maximize engagement, encourage frequent spending, or expose players to online risks.

Before buying or downloading a game for your child, here's what experts say parents should consider—and how to choose the right games for your child’s maturity and interests.

Beyond the game’s age rating, parents should check how the game makes money. “The main thing that I look at for appropriateness is how the game monetizes,” says Sam Liberty, applied game designer, professor at Northeastern University, and CEO/Principal Consultant of Applied Games Unlimited. He says that some business models are straightforward, while others encourage repeated spending or use mechanics that can be difficult for younger players to recognize. Understanding a few common business models can help parents spot when a game is likely to ask for additional money—or encourage children to keep spending:

• Premium Games: Premium games are the traditional purchase model: You buy the game once and own it. Occasionally, these games may offer other microtransactions or downloadable content (DLC), which adds new characters, levels, or storylines to enhance gameplay, but generally you receive a fully playable game for the ticket price. This is the most straightforward pricing model because parents know the cost upfront.
• Free-to-Play: Free-to-play games don't charge an upfront purchase price; they generate revenue in other ways. Liberty highlights three ways publishers can make money from these games: ads, subscriptions, and microtransactions. If a game your child wants to play is free, it’s worth researching how the publisher ends up making money to assess its appropriateness.
• Microtransactions: These refer to in-game purchases used to enhance a player’s experience. They fall into two categories: cosmetic (meaning they don’t change gameplay but rather how a character or the environment looks) and purchases that make the player better at playing the game. Liberty warns that purchases affecting gameplay can make spending money feel like the easiest way to overcome a challenge or avoid hours of repetitive play. Parents may want to pay closer attention to games where spending money provides competitive advantages or where purchases are promoted frequently.
• Loot boxes, gacha, and gambling: Some games rely on a subset of microtransactions that randomize rewards. In these games, a player doesn’t outright purchase a character, weapon, skin, or other element of the game but rather the ability to open random packs for a chance at receiving their desired in-game asset (sometimes referred to as loot boxes or a gacha system, though different games use different terms). Games that use these mechanics, like Genshin Impact, EA Sports FC, or Marvel Snap, can serve as an early introduction to gambling for kids. Parents should exercise extreme caution around games like this because randomized reward systems can make it harder for players—especially younger ones—to understand how much they're spending or the likelihood of receiving a desired item.

Parent Takeaway: Before downloading a game, check whether it's a one-time purchase, includes in-game purchases, or relies on randomized rewards. Knowing how a game makes money can tell you as much about the experience as its age rating.

Another crucial piece of information that isn’t captured by a game’s rating is the online experience. In fact, most age ratings provided by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) explicitly state that the online experience doesn’t factor into the rating. Many games offer some form of online play, ranging from text chat to voice chat and user-generated content. Understanding these different modes of communication and how to moderate them can help keep your kid safe while playing.

• Be sure you know whether your child can communicate with strangers via the game. If a game lets users communicate, it’s likely through voice chat, text chat, or both. In games that support these communications, players can typically message anyone else they’re in a game with, including through private messages, though it varies by game.

Some games aimed at children include chat filters that block profanity or prevent players from sharing links to outside websites, though Liberty cautions that “those are quite easy to get around.” Liberty recommends waiting until children are mature enough before allowing them to play online with strangers. When introducing online communication, he advises doing so gradually: “Be in the room when they’re doing this stuff, so you can see and hear what they’re saying and doing.”

• Parents should also understand user-generated content (UGC). UGC is anything in a game that's created by players instead of the game's developer. For example, many parents may not know that Roblox isn’t a game but rather a platform that allows other users to upload their games to it—and those games can vary wildly in appropriateness for kids. Liberty also notes that some Roblox experiences use additional in-game currencies on top of Robux (the platform’s official currency), which can make real-world costs harder to track. Some games are moderated by the publisher to ensure UGC is appropriate, whereas others have looser guardrails. It’s worth taking a look at a game’s UGC guidelines when vetting a game for your kid to ensure they may not be exposed to anything inappropriate.

In recent years, both game and console manufacturers have done more to help parents better moderate their child’s online play. Most major consoles have parental-control apps that let parents enable or disable certain online activities, and you can often access additional controls within each game itself. Keep in mind that console settings and in-game settings don't always sync, so it's worth checking a new game's privacy and communication settings after installing it.

Parent Takeaway: Before downloading a game, check whether it includes voice chat, text chat, or user-generated content. Review the game's privacy settings, encourage your child to communicate only with people they know, and consider supervising online play until your kid is ready to navigate those interactions independently.

Games vary widely in terms of content—not just the level of violence, graphic sexuality, or use of explicit language, but also in terms of themes tackled, gameplay goals, and social dynamics.

The first half of that content equation is relatively straightforward thanks to the game's age rating. The ESRB gives ratings ranging from “E (Everyone)” all the way up to “AO (Adults Only).” Each ESRB rating also includes content descriptors—such as "Fantasy Violence," "Strong Language," or "Tobacco Reference"—that explain why the game received its rating. Parents can also look up games on the ESRB’s website for more detailed descriptions of how those elements appear in-game.

The second half of the content equation—anything regarding the themes of the game, gameplay goals, and social dynamics—requires a bit more investigation to assess but can also help you hone in on what games are right for your kid with a more nuanced approach.

Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD, a clinical psychologist and creator of the Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic podcast, recommends asking your child questions like "Why do you think this game got the rating it did?" or "Why do you think the game developer included that?"

Once you've started that conversation, you can also think about what the narrative is trying to tell your child. Is your child mature enough to grapple with its ideas, even if it only features age-appropriate content? A great example is the game Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (fun fact: one of my personal favorites). While the game has an age rating of E10+ (Everyone 10 and older), the game deals considerably with ideas of grief and loss, meaning some 10-year-olds may not be emotionally ready for those themes. Looking up plot synopses and reviews can help parents find games that narratively fit their child’s stage in development.

It’s also worth considering the game’s fundamental gameplay mechanics. Games like Rocket League and Animal Crossing: New Horizons both have an E (Everyone) rating, but the first involves high-intensity fast-paced matches that focus more on hand-eye coordination and emotional regulation, whereas the latter is a slow-paced laid-back city builder where kids can let their creativity shine. One isn’t objectively better suited for kids than the other, but knowing what kinds of experiences your child enjoys, whether the game will amp them up or help them relax, and what skills it could help them develop means a lot when choosing what game to buy for them.

Whether your kids play alone or with family or friends also matters. Solo games can be a great opportunity for kids to develop the ability to self-entertain, but there are also benefits of learning teamwork, sportsmanship, and communication through collaborative play. Playing games together with your kids can also teach you about their interests and help you stay on top of what they’re doing in the game world. Both types of play can be beneficial, it just depends on which benefits you’re seeking for your kid.

Parent Takeaway: The age rating on the game’s box or online listing, while very useful, is just the tip of the iceberg. Consider the game’s narrative themes, how it plays, and whether it’s a collaborative or single-player experience to get a fuller picture of whether it’s appropriate. You can use the ESRB’s website to get more information on why a specific game got a certain age rating and to see if it might be a good pick for them while still accounting for your child’s individual maturity and sensitivities.

There’s an important distinction between games that are engaging and make your kid want to play and those that use a slew of tactics to keep kids coming back whether they want to or not. For example, some games will offer daily rewards or incentives that are given to players simply for opening the software to ensure that they log on every day. Others will have limited-time promotions or use artificial scarcity, making characters, skins, or other in-game goods available for a short period—and enticing kids to check back frequently to not miss the deals. These kinds of systems can exploit kids’ fears of missing out and keep them logging on when they otherwise might not want to.

On the other hand, some games can encourage the development of delayed gratification and have game systems that encourage players to take breaks. For example, Pokémon Pokopia uses real-time progression for certain activities, such as habitat development, encouraging players to log off and check back later rather than trying to do everything in one sitting. As long as players can't spend real money to speed those timers up, it can be a great feature in games to encourage a healthy amount of playtime.

When it comes to distinguishing between a kid who loves video games and one who has a problematic relationship with it, “I’d recommend focusing on its impact,” says Kennedy-Moore. “Kids wanting to play video games more than their parents want or complaining when asked to get off doesn't necessarily mean they're addicted.”

To spot a kid who may have developed an unhealthy relationship with the medium, Kennedy-Moore recommends asking yourself if gaming is negatively affecting your child’s school, social life, sleep, or mood. If any of these are the case, she advises finding a replacement activity as one of the best solutions: “By far, the most effective strategy for getting kids to spend less time on video games is to help them find other activities that they enjoy. In general, it’s easier for kids to replace a behavior than to stop it.”

Parent Takeaway: Some games respect players' time. Others are designed to keep them coming back. Before downloading a game, look for mechanics like daily rewards, limited-time events, or other incentives that encourage frequent logins. If you're concerned about how much your child is playing, focus less on the number of hours and more on whether gaming is affecting their sleep, schoolwork, friendships, or mood.

Every game teaches something—not just through its story, but through the behaviors it rewards. There's no one-size-fits-all "best" video game, but there are certainly games that reward your child's time more meaningfully than others.

For Liberty, one of the clearest signs of a high-quality game is its gameplay loop—the cycle of actions, challenges, and rewards that players repeat while playing. If that loop keeps children engaged because they're solving interesting problems and discovering new things, rather than because they're afraid of missing out on daily rewards or limited-time events, that's a strong sign the game may be worth their time.

As a parent, you know your child best, and as such, the easiest way to vet a game might be to pick up a controller and play it yourself. Many premium games now offer demos where you can get a feel for the game’s story and mechanics. In cases where a demo isn’t available, there’s a wide swath of resources to consult, from online reviews to specialist sites like Common Sense Media, which Kennedy-Moore recommends parents use to get the low-down on games they might be considering from a parenting perspective.

No rating or review can tell you as much about whether a game is right for your child as an honest conversation with them can. Kennedy-Moore recommends asking children thoughtful questions about the games they play. Drawing on both Kennedy-Moore and Liberty’s guidance, you might ask why your child wants to play a game, why they think it received its rating, and how the game makes money—or might encourage them to spend it. These kinds of conversations can teach kids critical thinking and media literacy and give your kids the chance to share their interests with you. Who knows, maybe they’ll even make you a gamer yourself—if you weren’t one already.