Does anyone actually care about ratings? Serious question. Fine feature if you do but here in the UK, the ratings system is generally a load of bollocks.

I care. I used it as a filter and then use commonsensemedia.com to look into it further when I'm curious about just what exactly is in the game that night be an issue.

I have a son very sensitive to scary images and scenes in hospitals. A girl who is sensitive to women being portrayed as less than human, and a son who can't yet read well enough to get value out of a text heavy game. So I use all of that info combined to try to make educated purchases for them.

I sometimes preplay games that I can't get good info on, too. But of course, that means I have to buy it. So that's just for games that I also have an interest in them.

That is fair enough. Admittedly Im curious about the less than human thing. Got an example?

To be honest I only take notice of the ratings to comparison shop. The first indication one store has released a censored version of something is basically the advertised rating, and for someone who dislikes the mutilation of a game (or movie) from its original intended form this is an important purchase consideration. So yeah, I agree to pop up the rating on the store page.
Write up a wishlist entry, post the link and I'll vote for it.

I'm fairly certain that any game rated by the ESRB has a big ole sticker slapped somewhere on the game page. Ditto for other ratings boards. (See attached image.)

But much like the MPAA, everything is made up and the points don't matter, since people don't have any say or direct role in any of the ratings and the entire process is largely a mysterious fog of omniscient vagueness.

As a note, the submission process is not only optional, but also cost money. If you're some indie dev starting out with only two dollars to rub together, who are you to even bother with such an expense unless you're shooting for the consoles?

Yes.

For one, she gets very irritated by girls who can't do anything. She hates in Mario 1 how the Princess is the only girl in the game and she needs rescued from the men-monsters by the men-heroes. She said, when she was 6, "why doesn't she just rescue herself?" Especially as she's seen her combat in some of the other games.

She doesn't understand the sexualization of women in media (she's 7), but she recognizes when girls are the props and boys are the players (like girls holding signs in boxing and driving games).

She likes games where she can choose her gender (she and I are playing through Icewind Dale right now and she loves it) and she likes games where women are as strong as she feels. She's playing through Beyond Good and Evil right now.

She is the middle child in my family and her older brother is physically handicapped. So she's the strongest kid, but not the youngest. She feels strong. She's the only athlete in the family at this point. She recognizes that women don't get physically as strong as men, but she doesn't understand why they are often turned into props or always needing saved.

We talk about fantasy tropes. We talk about how Nintendo started in the toy stores and toy stores had "girl toys" and "boy toys" and nothing that mixed. Video games started the mix, but in the beginning, they had to put Nintendo in a section, so they put it in the boys section. Girls would play, but for a few years, the games were really pointed toward boys. We also talked about how amazing it was when we, as children, saw Samus pull off her helmet. Back then, it was the best ending of any game ever. It was a simple move, but mind-blowing for that time in the industry.

Her favorite game is a Barbie game where she rescues dogs. It's very poorly made. If it was a boy in the bicycle, it would have tanked. But in videogame land, you often get a subpar game starring a girl b/c the sales just don't show up for some reason. Nonetheless, although the game could be much more fun, she eats it up. Hundreds of dogs rescued.

So, if she wanted to play boxing. I could look at this game:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/game-reviews/fight-night-champion
Clearly not for her. Under "sex" it says "The "ring card" girls aren't wearing much (usually bikinis) and the camera often focuses on their chests or buttocks. Some tattoos depict women in provocative poses."

But I wouldn't really have to get there because it's rated "M." So I don't need to dig that far.

Punch-Out would be more her style:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/game-reviews/punch-out

In reality, girls do hold the signs. Girls are at the strip-club. Girls are the ones in the G-strings. But it's not all the girls. And it's not who she wants to be. She doesn't want to be a prop. And I think that's healthy and something I can get behind.

Understandable but dangerously close to feminism. Should maybe show her examples of women objectifying men too just to show her that it's not just girls in that kind of situation. Great example being those awful coca cola adverts where women do to a man what would have had him arrested had the positions been switched. It doesn't sound healthy to be honest, no offense intended.

All I know is that there are games that show a local Australian rating on Steam (Fallout New Vegas for example displays an MA rating with "strong violence", "drug references" and "coarse language" labels attached) but the same games on GoG do not display any ratings at all.

Its possible GoG isn't set up to display Australian ratings or that publishers aren't providing the necessary details but whatever the reason I think displaying the appropriate rating for any country where the relavent ratings entity has given the game a rating would help people out.