America's National Institute on Media and the Family has given the US games industry's efforts at ratings a thumbs up. Meanwhile, it has told parents to pull their finger out.

The Institute, a non-profit research and lobby group that monitors the impact of the media on children, just published its 13th annual 'Video Game Report Card'. In an astonishingly patronising manner it gave the ESRB an 'A' for both its ratings ("The addition of ratings summaries is yet another step forward in the growing list of improvements that the ESRB has made in recent years") and educational efforts, ("We commend the ESRB for intensifying efforts to help parents understand the video game ratings. The ESRB has become the entertainment industry leader in educating retailers and parents about the rating system.")

Retailers didn't fare quite so well, but were still given a generally favourable response. They got a B+. A recent US Federal Trade Commission investigation of the availability of Mature-rated games to 13-16 year olds found that only 20% of youngsters trying to get 'Mature' rated games were successful. That's an improvement on 2006's 42%. It also means that it's now more difficult for kids to buy an M-rated game than it is for them to get an R-rated film ticket. All this, the Institute reckons, is good.

Parents, however, have room for improvement. Of parents, the Institute said, "too many parents are not using information like game ratings, parental controls and screen time limits provided by retailers and console makers". If SPOnG were more inclined toward snivelling, we'd be standing behind the Institute, looking over its shoulder at parents and nasally crying "Yeah!" But, you know, we're not...

The Institute also published a parental guide to games and a list of what to get and what to avoid. Bizarrely, there was no mention of GTA IV in the 'don't touch with a barge pole' category.

For more on the report, click here.

You can see what the Institute thought of the industry last year here.