This case study follows ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) through their journey from a mobile website to creating mobile applications for their growing customer base. They now have available, an iPhone and Android app. The case study also takes a peek into how they decided to create native apps and the quality assurance testing process.

1. Riding the Mobile Wave:
How the ESRB’s Voyage into the World of Apps is Paying Dividends
plications for both the In 2008, the ESRB began of-
iPhone and Android, fering a supplemental source
with another round of of information called “rating
development currently summaries,” which provide a
underway on a Windows brief but detailed description
Phone 7 app. The pur- of exactly the types of content
pose of this whitepaper parents would want to know
is to give readers an inside about when choosing a game
look at the development for their child, including specific
process for native apps and examples.
why it’s important to the
ESRB to reach consumers via In order to make these rating
native apps no matter what summaries available at the store
device they use. – where the purchase decision
is often made – ESRB created a
mobile website that included a
“Working with PointAbout searchable database of ESRB’s
and its team of mobile de- entire library of rated games,
velopers provided access to including rating summaries for
expertise that we don’t have those titles that had them. The
internally.” site served the needs of parents,
who are the primary purchasers
The The ESRB rating system consists of video and computer games.
Entertainment Software Rat- of two parts: age ratings, which
ing Board (ESRB) is a non-profit appear on the front of a game’s Testing the Native App Waters
regulatory agency that assigns package, indicate a game’s age-
the age and content ratings for appropriateness, and content
thousands of video and com- descriptors, found on the back, The ESRB decided to take its
puter games every year. identify content in a game that mobile initiatives a step further
either triggered the rating or in the fall of 2009. Randy Walker,
PointAbout has worked with may just be of interest or concern the ESRB’s Vice President of Mar-
the ESRB to develop native ap- to a consumer. keting, discovered the PointA-
bout team when he was looking
Contact PointAbout at 202.391.0347, info@pointabout.com
or visit www.pointabout.com for more information.

2. CNET and a number of other
media outlets. The ESRB team
found the app’s user retention
to be high, and the number of
rating searches conducted via
the app indicated that provid-
ing consumers with useful
information when they were
at the point-of-purchase was
a valuable tool. “We measure
consumer engagement with the
ratings through various metrics,
two of which are rating searches
and rating summary views,” said
Eliot Mizrachi, the ESRB’s Direc-
tor of Communications. “Our
for a way to augment the ESRB’s rating information for specific
mobile strategy supports both of
mobile website with a native iP- games and keywords. The app
these measures, which increased
hone app. The iPhone had made also provided the ability for the
overall by 20 percent and 103
significant inroads with consum- user to filter their queries such
percent, respectively, in 2010.”
ers since its 2007 release, and the
ESRB wanted to capitalize on the “Create a customer-focused
speed and performance offered All Signs Point to Android
offering that provides value,
by native iPhone apps.
engage talented people to
While the ESRB’s iPhone app
The ESRB’s original iPhone app develop it and be prepared
drove significant traffic to its
aimed to give parents an even to execute marketing and ratings and rating summaries,
quicker, easier-to-use resource communication plans to Android use among the general
than the mobile website. PointA- drive awareness, downloads public skyrocketed. The surge in
bout and the ESRB collaborated and use while measuring popularity of a second mobile
to develop an app that would al- against goals to determine operating system prompted the
low consumers to find out on the success or challenge.” ESRB to develop a native app for
fly whether a video game would Android.
be appropriate for their children. that the ESRB database only The agency also wanted to
The original iPhone app featured returns results within a platform release an updated version of
a search tool and access to the or age appropriate ranking. The its iPhone app that would have
ESRB’s expansive library of game user is offered maximum cus- the same functionality as its first-
ratings. tomizability in the execution of generation Android app.
their searches
The app gathered content by The most notable feature of
making web service calls to the Version 1 of the ESRB search app both the Android and updated
ESRB’s server to download the received favorable reviews from iPhone app is the photo recogni-
Contact PointAbout at 202.391.0347, info@pointabout.com
or visit www.pointabout.com for more information.

3. tion functionality, which gives which then gets sent via web ratings database. The web ser-
consumers the ability to take service to ESRB. The web service vice calls are highly refined and
a picture of a game’s cover and call returns rating results using happen rapidly, allowing for a
immediately retrieve its ESRB a proprietary image-matching quick image send and search
rating information, including the service developed by IQ Engines regardless of the grade of user
rating summary. that looks up the title on ESRB’s connection on their device.
“The app’s search function and “The app’s search func- PointAbout’s QA team tested
ability to access an Android or tion and ability to access various versions of the app built
iPhone’s camera roll makes it a with calls to different third-party
an Android or iPhone’s
snap to use,” said Kevin Lenane, vendors for image recognition
PointAbout’s Director of Mobile camera roll makes it a in order to evaluate the best
Strategy. “You could find the snap to use. You could offering. Testers measured time-
same information by searching find the same informa- response and image-matching
ESRB’s website, but the app tion by searching ESRB’s results based on different con-
enables easy access to rating website, but the app nection types such as WiFi and
summaries right in the stores, enables easy access to 3G.
where parents often need this rating summaries right in
information most.” the stores, where parents PointAbout and the ESRB
often need this informa- analyzed the test reports and
The camera search feature makes found that the image recogni-
tion most.”
use of the iOS and Android cam- tion services from IQ Engines
era APIs. The user takes a picture, were markedly better than the
Contact PointAbout at 202.391.0347, info@pointabout.com
or visit www.pointabout.com for more information.

4. competition. “Not only did the forecast of doubling app down- For other companies consider-
test results show which service loads and mobile rating searches ing mobile applications, Walker
provider produced faster, more in 2011.” recommends keeping it simple.
accurate results, it helped our “Don’t forget the basics,” he said.
developers improve the per- Based on the success of its origi- “Create a customer-focused
formance of the application by nal iPhone app, the ESRB didn’t offering that provides value, en-
fine tuning the image sizes,” said think twice before deciding gage talented people to develop
Perry Miranda, PointAbout’s to return to PointAbout for its it and be prepared to execute
Director of QA. second round of apps. “Working marketing and communication
with PointAbout and its team plans to drive awareness and
Launching the Apps of mobile developers provided downloads.”
access to expertise that we don’t
have internally,” concluded
What better time to launch a Walker.” I am sure we would not
retail-related app than over the have achieved the same level of
holidays? The first ESRB app was success without their involve-
released in December 2009. The ment.”
ESRB debuted its Android app
and new iPhone app in Decem-
ber 2010, bolstered by another
batch of favorable reviews.
“We launched those apps last
year during the holiday shop-
ping season,” added Walker,
“which provided an opportunity
to generate 335 million impres-
sions through earned and paid
media supporting the apps and
our message encouraging par-
ents to check the ratings.”
The apps doubled the number of
downloads over the same period
from the previous year, yielding a
150% increase in rating searches,
according to Walker. “Both of
these metrics indicate greater
engagement with parents and
consumers and supports our
Contact PointAbout at 202.391.0347, info@pointabout.com
or visit www.pointabout.com for more information.