Game Ratings Don't Always Tell Whole Story

April 5, 2006 -- -- When buying video or computer games, you may be getting more than you paid for, according to a new study by the Harvard School of Public Health. More sex, violence and obscene language, that is.

The study looked at the much-scrutinized video- and computer-game ratings system, which uses a combination of ratings -- such as "M" for mature or "T" for teen -- and content descriptors to alert buyers to any potentially offensive or age-sensitive material, like profanity, violence, or drug and alcohol use.

Researchers specifically targeted games rated M -- for gamers 17 and older -- and found that 81 percent of the games used in the study were mislabeled and and had missing content descriptors.

They found that parents rely on these ratings to make decisions about what is and is not appropriate for their children, and that descriptors that are missing or used inconsistently may unfairly influence their decisions.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who has been an outspoken critic of the video game industry's self-policing policies and has called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct a study on the impact of violent games on kids, was not surprised.

"These findings are yet another reminder of the need to help parents who are struggling to monitor the content available to their children," Clinton said in a statement to ABCNEWS.com. "We need to do everything we can to help arm parents with this kind of information to allow them to make informed decisions about what video games are appropriate for their children."

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board argued that any game rated M is not intended for children in the first place, regardless of what descriptors are on the packaging, and that an M rating should be enough to let parents know the game is not for kids.

"The study … simply confirms what most parents and gamers already know," said an ESRB statement, "that games rated M (mature 17+) have content that is not suitable for young players."