[2] Similar bills have been passed in some U.S. states such as California, Michigan and Illinois, but were ruled to be unconstitutional[3] in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass'n, 564 U.S. 08–1448 (2011).

[4] The centerpiece of this bill is a prohibition against any business for selling or renting a Mature, Adults-Only, or Ratings Pending game to a person who is younger than seventeen.

This provision is not aimed at punishing retailers who act in good faith to enforce the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) system.

Part of the genesis of this bill was the revelation that the makers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas had included, through embedded code that was discovered and made accessible to the public, sexually explicit content inconsistent with the game’s Mature rating (commonly known as the Hot Coffee mod).

This bill authorizes the FTC to conduct an annual, random audit of retailers – sometimes referred to as a secret shopper survey – to determine how easy it is for young people to purchase Mature and Adults Only video games and report the findings to Congress.