How many games does each rater examine per month? Do raters work on more than one game at a time?

PV: The number of games a rater will review on a given day or during a given week depends more on the time of year than anything else. Our busiest time is during the summer as companies submit the games they're readying for release in the run-up to the busy holiday season. During those peak times the raters can review around 150 games per month.

What's the most time consuming step of that process? Where does a rater spend most of his or her time?

PV: It's really tough to generalize about these kinds of things because the type of product that we rate is so varied. It really comes down to the individual submission. Some games might have a long submission video, but the rating will be fairly apparent and not much discussion will be required. For others it's the opposite, where the raters' dialogue is the more time-consuming part of the process. Our focus is on thoroughness and thoughtfulness, not how long it takes to achieve those things.

How are games assigned to raters? Can a rater request a specific game, or is it done randomly?

PV: Raters cannot request specific games to rate. We'll have a docket of games that are set to be rated on a given day, and the raters' time is scheduled accordingly. There's effort made to have each panel be as heterogeneous as possible, such as trying to have both male and female represented, but on the whole it's a function of scheduling and managing time.

What do raters receive or know about a game before the video arrives? Do raters receive information on the game along with the video? For example, could a publisher send along promotional or explanatory material for the rater?

PV: Along with the video, the only other information that might be provided to raters is a script or lyric sheet provided by the publisher for the game being evaluated. Capturing language and dialogue on the video submission, particularly in context, can be tricky. So sometimes, instead of having a video with a montage of several instances of foul language (including the most extreme), the raters review the scripts and lyric sheets to gain a better understanding of the dialogue and frequency with which profanity and other potentially offensive language occur. The written questionnaire that is part of the [publisher's] submission is used by ESRB staff to check the video and make sure that all of the pertinent content being described is appropriately represented in the video that raters review. If ESRB staff determines that the video is not representative of the written submission form (or vice versa) the submission is put on hold until the publisher corrects the deficiency.

Are raters allowed to read about games, for example previews in a magazine or on a website, before they rate them?

PV: We don't disallow it, and in reality it's unavoidable that some of them will encounter those kinds of things on occasion. However, we do stress that the raters should only consider the submitted materials put before them in assigning a rating.

If a game is a sequel, are raters required to be familiar with previous games in the series, either by research or by experience?

PV: The short answer is that it's not required. Games are rated individually based upon their content, not content that appeared in previous episodes or other versions in the series, so knowledge about prior games in a series isn't a necessity. However, that said, parity is a very important consideration. It's imperative that ratings be consistent, so there will be times that raters will review submissions from other games, in the series or not, to consider how similar content was previously rated when assigning a rating to a particular game.

Do raters have specialties in particular genres, as that might give them context for understanding what they're watching?

PV: The training that our raters undergo encompasses all genres, and they're abundantly exposed to all of them. As I said before, the particular games assigned to any rater are a function of scheduling more so than the individual qualities of the raters.