ESRB soon gets to say, 'You must be this old to play this iPhone game'

With this bit of news, you're mileage may vary. This could be either the most depressing or comforting news you hear all day, dependent upon your age. The ESRB, or the Entertainment Software Rating Board, will roll out a content ratings system for iOS and Android. IndustryGamers reports that the ESRB will have help from the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.

The new system will standardize video game and app ratings across iOS and Android devices, which is admittedly a fragmented mess at the moment. While the App Store allows developers to choose ratings based on age, the Android Market features ratings with wording from "Everyone" to "High Maturity." With this system, mobile game creators would have to submit their games to the ESRB--just like they do with console and PC games--in order to receive a rating.

According to IndustryGamers, the ESRB has rated over 21,000 games since its inception in 1994. With the amount of games that hit the App Store and Android Market every week, that number is about to skyrocket. How this system will be enforced once employed is unknown, which is certainly a concern considering the amount of parents that let little Mary Sue play with the iPad.

Are you relieved or annoyed that mobile games are about to get their own standardized ratings system? How could the ESRB enforce such a system on the App Store and Android Market?

Will the Ultima maker's new social game appeal to all forms of gamer?

That's sounds pretty ... ambitious (to say the least), but that seems to be what game designer Richard Garriott is going for. During a recent interview with IndustryGamers, Ultima creator Garriott somehow revealed his master plan for how he's going to change social gaming without revealing anything specific, really. While it's too early to make serious judgment calls, his idea sounds downright awesome.

At least on paper, it sounds as if players will be able to carve out their own role in a fantasy world that rewards several different types of play. Basically, members of a group of friends can each take on different roles--be it farmer, shop owner or even adventurer--and somehow contribute to the overall world both in real time and asynchronously.

"And allowing it to be asynchronous interaction as well as synchronous interaction," Garriott told IndustryGamers. "So if you're the farmer, and you're playing your FarmVille style of gameplay, and that's what you like, that's fine, and you can either sell it on your produce stand or come over to my cafe and sell it to me directly, but either way, if you're offline, me or my chef can come over to your farm stand or to you personally if you're online, and buy the produce we need, and in either case we're gonna sell meals to the adventurer that just came through and might be bringing back the special dragon egg to make the greatest omelet that's ever been made in the history of the world! I can now make it in my cafe based on the stuff the adventurer brought back."

In essence, Garriott's Lord British's New Britannia (working title) will somehow allow the FarmVille player, the Cafe World fan and the Skyrim fanatic to all play the same game in their own way and help one another. If developer Portalarium can live up to these ambitions, then count us in.