Still in the wake of the Hot Coffee incident, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board is in a fight to defend its own legitimacy. As such, they've released the results of a new study conducted on their behalf which shows that 83% of parents are aware of the ESRB rating system, and 74% use it regularly to decide which games to buy for their families. These numbers are up from 2005, which were 78% and 70%, respectively.

Other findings include:

• 53% say they never allow their children to play M rated games, while 41% said they "sometimes" do
• 94% said the ratings are very helpful (72%) or somewhat helpful (22%)
• 91% are confident that ratings accurately describe a game’s content
• 72% said that the rating is the most important (31%) or a very important consideration (41%) when deciding whether or not to purchase a game
• 91% say their trust in the ESRB ratings has either stayed the same (76%) or increased (15%) in the past year
• More than half said they check content descriptors “every time” (35%) or “most of the time” (16%)

Source: Gamasutra