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An exclusive GamePolitics interview with Rep. Lee Terry (R) demonstrates that the Nebraska Congressman, co-sponsor of a new video game ratings enforcement bill, has a grasp on some video game rating issues, yet a flawed understanding of others. 

As reported earlier this week by GamePolitics, Terry and Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) introduced the Video Games Rating Enforcement Act. If approved, the bill would mandate that game retailers check IDs of mature-rated game buyers. The measure would also require that information detailing the rating system be posted in view of customers. Terry spoke to GP about the proposal:

This is a rather simple bill in that it focuses on making sure that retailers ID young folks when they try to buy an M or A[O] rated game. And this is kind of my approach instead of trying to micromanage by legislation the standards or content…

What we’d rather do is just make sure that parents are empowered with information, what the standards really mean and then what’s specifically in that game and then to make sure that retailers don’t subvert the parent’s decision… If they don’t want their child to have an M-rated game, the retailers don’t sell it to them…

Based on the timing of the new legislation, we asked Terry whether it was planned to coincide with the intense publicity surrounding the April 29th release of Grand Theft Auto IV. Terry, however, maintained that the timing was purely coincidental:

As a matter of fact, I almost thought about waiting another week or two. I will have to take some responsibility. Mr. Matheson brought this to me several months ago and… it kind of got pushed to the back burner. So it was more coincidental… but [the GTA IV hype] probably did heighten the scrutiny of the bill within the press, which is a positive thing. But we did not wait until Grand Theft Auto IV came out to drop the bill. That was coincidental.

Oddly enough, the Terry-Matheson bill, which addresses video game rating enforcement, was introduced on Wednesday, less than 24 hours before the Federal Trade Commission’s latest report gave glowing marks to the video game industry for its retail ratings enforcement. Terry, however, was clearly not acquainted with the results of the FTC report, citing 69% as the rate at which FTC secret shoppers were able to purchase M-rated games. That figure, however, is from the FTC’s 2003 survey. In 2006 the number dropped to 42%. Yesterday’s figure was an impressive 20%. We asked Terry about the FTC report:

I had heard that the report found that 69% of unaccompanied 13 to 16-year olds were able to purchase M-rated video games from retailers.

After we explained the actual FTC figures, Terry said:

Oh, okay. Well, good. We’re going in the right direction. I think probably what’s really helped that improvement is that some of the big retailers like Wal-Mart, Target have software… at the point-of-sale that blocks M and then the cashier has to ask for ID…

We also queried Terry on public comments he made which cited rape as a way to earn a higher score in some games. When pressed, Terry could not cite an example:

That’s a good question. I don’t know of any [specific games] offhand… I just used the rape, pillage and plunder line…

The actual Terry quote as reported in Variety is:

In some games high scores are often earned by players who commit ‘virtual’ murder, assault and rape.

Terry was a good sport over his lampooning by The Daily Show host Jon Stewart following a contentious 2006 committee hearing on video game issues. He described the experience as:

Humiliating, as it was supposed to be… It was slightly out of context… That’s what fake news is about. I saw that. That was fun…

Later, Terry again made reference to his Daily Show experience:

One of the things that Jim [Matheson] and I talked about a great deal is that the ratings themselves seem to be very confusing. We did not to get into that morass because Jon Stewart showed us exactly what was going to happen to us if we did…

The Congressman, who said he occasionally plays NCAA sports games with his sons on their Xbox 360, was familiar with the issues surrounding the controversial but rarely used Adults Only rating. He also pointed out the inconsistency found in the M rating category, where some games, such as as Grand Theft Auto have far more mature content than others. Terry specifically mentioned Destroy All Humans, Call of Duty and Halo in this regard.

Listen to the interview with Rep. Terry (9:08 minutes, mp3) here.

Next Generation is reporting GTA IV glitches on the PlayStation 3 version.

Joystiq notes that, despite Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick’s assertion that the game has no glitches, a PS3 patch has been released.

Today’s Mirror reports:

Internet forums dedicated to the game have been flooded with complaints from buyers.

Hundreds of posts claim the £44.99 game does not work properly on the Sony PlayStation 3 console or on Microsoft’s Xbox 360. And a HMV stores spokesman said: “We have had people come back to us saying that their game has been freezing.”

Others say they cannot play it on the net because online servers are jammed.

Personally, I’ve gotten to 16.05% through the game (GTA IV tracks this) and have had no problems in either single or multiplayer using the Xbox 360 version. But you can’t discount so many glitch reports. As a consumer, it makes me wonder about some of those perfect review scores…

We’ve got additional reactions to yesterday’s report by the Federal Trade Commission which gave high marks to the video game biz for its enforcement of ESRB ratings at point-of-sale.

A spokesman for State Senator Leland Yee (D), architect of California’s contested video game law, remarked:

The Senator is pleased and commends retailers for significantly improving on the latest FTC study.  Clearly retailers are much more cognizant of the potential harmful effects of ultra violent video games and are not selling such games to minors in as great a number. 

With that said, it is imperative that the industry does more to prevent the sale of adult oriented games to children. Twenty percent of minors can still easily get their hands on games that are inappropriate for them. That equates to hundreds of thousands of children who are potentially in harm’s way. The Senator looks forward to continuing his efforts and working with the various interested parties to end the sale of extremely violent video games to children.

Meanwhile, Gavin McKiernan, National Grassroots Director of the Parents Television Council, lauded GameStop for its 94% enforcement record, but said that, as a whole, the video game industry needs to do better: (more…)

The steep decline in sales of M-rated games to underage buyers reported this morning by the Federal Trade Commission is a clear victory for the video game industry on both the political and public relations fronts.

Taking a victory lap is the organization responsible for operating the video game industry’s rating system, the ESRB. Via press release, ESRB president Patricia Vance commented on today’s FTC report:

Video game retailers have clearly stepped up their efforts to enforce their store policies, and they deserve recognition for these outstanding results.  We commend and applaud retailers for their strong support of the ESRB ratings, and will continue working with them to help ensure that these levels of compliance are sustained if not further increased.

The ESA, representing US video game publishers, declined to comment, referring us instead to the ESRB.

Bo Andersen, president of the Entertainment Merchants Association, a trade group representing a number of video game retailers, also weighed in. For retailers, the report is a mixed bag. They scored superb numbers on game rating enforcement, but were criticized by the FTC for sales of R-rated and unrated DVDs to underage buyers. Andersen said:

Retailers don’t want children to be able to purchase or rent video games and DVDs that their parents do not want them to have. As a result, they have made real and significant investments in enforcing the voluntary video game and motion picture ratings in their stores. The FTC’s latest ‘undercover shopper’ survey demonstrates that these investments are producing strong results… While we are pleased with the progress that has been made in ratings enforcement, retailers still are not where they want to be as an industry.

On the consumer side, Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, remarked:

This is an extraordinary accomplishment from the nation’s leading interactive entertainment retailers, as it clearly shows their increased commitment of keeping mature-rated games out of children’s hands. Perhaps most impressive is the incredible reversal in their failure rate over such a short period of time and with a comparatively new rating system.

This is truly a vindication for video game merchants who have been falsely damned by anti-game advocates and special interest groups, who now don’t have a leg to stand on.

GamePolitics also offered several high-profile game industry critics and watchdog groups an opportunity to comment. So far we’ve not heard back from the Parents Television Council, the National Institute on Media & the Family or California State Sen. Leland Yee. There was one critic we did hear from, though…

Despite the eye-popping retail enforcement numbers, anti-game activist Jack Thompson refused to give credit to the video game industry. Instead, he credited… Jack Thompson:

I’m more than happy to take credit for the improvement. The threat of legislation has improved performance, not some altruism on the part of the Strauss Zelnick’s [or] the industry. To America’s parents: Jack Thompson is delighted to have helped.

Of course, Thompson would have been all over the FTC numbers had they been unfavorable to the video game industry. Classy, Jack…

UPDATE: Dr. David Walsh of the National Institute on Media & the Family has now weighed in. NIMF claims a bit of the credit as well:

The results of the [FTC’s] latest undercover survey are good news for retailers and the [ESRB], but most of all for parents… With its consistent pressure on the video game industry, [NIMF] played a significant role in improving ratings enforcement and education. Similar to our… Video Game Report Cards, the FTC survey shows that specialty retailers, such as GameStop, continue to lead in enforcement and the rental companies need to step up their efforts…

Full Disclosure Dept: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics…

Hotly-anticipated PC titles Spore and Mass Effect will be among the first wave of PC games from EA to employ a controversial form of copy protection.

Techdirt reports that publisher Electronic Arts will use SecuROM protection, a scheme that has caused technical problems with some past titles. From the Techdirt story:

This new version is causing controversy due to an online verification system connected to its CD key. The system requires a connection to the internet during installation… After this the game will try to re-check the CD key every 5-10 days… If the game can’t verify the key… it will continue to try for a further 10 days, after which it will stop working… The protection will also only allow the game to be installed three times.

So what’s the beef? According to Techdirt:

A lot of gamers consider this intrusive and inconvenient, and that the publishers are effectively assuming their customers are pirates… Other concerns have been raised over users who don’t play with machines permanently connected to the internet… or how the system will work in regards to resale.

These potential problems combined with SecuROM’s past have made some call for a boycott of the titles and others to declare an intention to pirate the game out of spite.

Cnet’s Daniel Terdiman weighs in on the brewing controversy:

Systems like this are never going to be winners for companies like EA. For every copy of one of its games that it successfully keeps from being illegally copied, it’s going to lose a good customer who’s beyond annoyed at the way the system works and the way they feel they’re being treated.

To be sure, software companies feel they have to fight tooth and nail to avoid being robbed… [but] as the Sony rootkit scandal and other DRM PR nightmares have shown, users do not want to be controlled in this way. And they vote with their wallets.

The results of the Federal Trade Commission’s latest research into the marketing of violent entertainment to children is a major win for the video game industry.

Just-released numbers show that the FTC’s underage secret shoppers were only able to purchase M-rated games 20% of the time, a massive improvement over last year’s 42% success rate.

Amid heightened parental concerns following last week’s high-profile release of Grand Theft AUto IV, the news couldn’t come at a better time for the video game biz.

DVD sellers, on the other hand were spanked by the FTC for selling R-rated and unrated movies to underage buyers about half of the time. Theaters allowed the FTC’s secret shoppers into R-rated movies 35% of the time, making the game industry’s results all the more impressive.

New in this year’s report are individual ratings for retailers. The FTC results indicate that GameStop is doing the best job of retail ratings enforcement, turning away 94% of underage buyers. Wal-Mart and Best Buy scored high marks as well, with 82% and 80% turn-away rates, respectively.

Listed below are the FTC’s video game secret shopper results, listed by retailer (number indicated is successful purchases of M-rated games by underage buyers):

Game Stop/EB Games - 6%
Wal-Mart - 18%
Best Buy - 20%
Toys R Us - 27%
Target - 29%
Kmart - 31%
Circuit City - 38%
Hollywood Video - 40%

A graph posted on the FTC website (and seen at left) traces a steep decline in underage sales since 2000, when secret shoppers were successful 85% of the time.

 We’ll offer reactions from the video game industry and other stakeholders as we receive them.

It is the nature of the U.S. video game market that parents make the final decision about what constitutes appropriate content for their child.

Not so in New Zealand, where the government’s chief censor has ruled that parents may not purchase Grand Theft Auto IV for their children.

As reported by the New Zealand Herald, Bill Hastings (left) of New Zealand’s Office of Film and Literature Classification issued an opinion that store clerks may not sell the game to parents who are buying it for their teen. Said Hastings:

If it’s perfectly obvious the parent is buying the game for the child, don’t sell it to the parent. If a game is R18 it’s R18 for a reason and it’s illegal to make it available to anyone under that age.

In New Zealand, adults buying the game for a minor - even for their own child - could be jailed for 90 days or made to pay a $10,000 fine. The Herald notes, however, that the law has never been enforced.

And while Hastings seems to take his censorship duties seriously, he had some quite reasonable comments about GTA IV’s more redeeming qualities:

With the games we ban you have to kill everyone you meet and you’re generally rewarded for making the killing more gruesome. In Grand Theft Auto, you don’t have to kill everybody you meet - you could drive around and just look at the architecture…

All games in the Grand Theft Auto series have a kind of black satire - an overstatement of machismo. It takes the piss out of Soprano-type things.

By the way, we’ve heard America’s self-appointed censor, Jack Thompson, claiming that the sex scenes were taken out of the Australia/New Zealand version of GTA IV. Not entirely so, according to the Herald:

In the version submitted for classification [in New Zealand], the sex scenes include going to a strip club and getting lap dances. There’s also another point where the player can have sex with a prostitute - but in the version sold here, there is no visual depiction, just audio.

Thompson is trying to claim that the game is pornography, making its sale to 17-year-olds (as permitted by its M rating) a crime. If so, it would likely be the world’s first-ever sans genitalia porn.

The United Arab Emirates has banned Grand Theft Auto IV, according to a report in The National.

Some gamers, however, have found a way around the loophole by purchasing the game from the duty-free shop at Dubai Airport. The Abu Dhabi airport, however was not stocking the game.

The ban is not surprising, given that past GTA games have been banned in the UAE. And, as GamePolitics recently reported, Sony’s popular God of War has been banned as well.

The Entertainment Software Association, the trade association which represents US game publishers, is losing Activision and Vivendi as member companies.

UPDATE: We’ve just received confirmation from the ESA. Rich Taylor, ESA Senior Vice President of Communications and Research, issued the following statement:

While the Entertainment Software Association remains the preeminent voice for U.S. computer and video game publishers, we can confirm that Activision and Vivendi Games opted to discontinue their membership.

The ESA remains dedicated to advancing our industry’s objectives such as protecting intellectual property, preserving First Amendment rights, and fostering a beneficial environment for the entire industry. Our high level of service and value to members and the larger industry remains unchanged.

We began working on this story this morning after reading online reports that Activision would not be exhibiting at E3 in July. Beyond that information, GamePolitics observed that the ESA’s new website lists neither Activision or Vivendi as member companies.

The two game publishers, of course, are in the process of merging into Activision Blizzard. The reason for their decision to leave the ESA remains unclear at this point. Also unclear is whether any additional game publishers may defect from ESA member ranks.

The loss of two of its larger member firms will likely have a significant impact on the ESA’s revenue base. In addition to its own operations, the ESA funds E3, the Video Game Voters Network, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and the D.I.C.E. Summit. Any or all of those entities could feel the repercussions from the ESA’s loss of member revenues.

UPDATE 2: We’ve got comment from Activision now:

After careful consideration, Activision has decided not to renew its ESA membership for business reasons and will not be participating in any official E3 activities.  We appreciate the work that the ESA has done over the years in promoting the interactive entertainment industry with state and federal governments and wish the ESA best of luck with the show.

UPDATE 3: Kotaku is reporting that four more publishers (NCSoft, Codemasters, id and Her Entertainment) won’t participate in E3, although they are not dropping out of the ESA). Kotaku also has quotes from Wedbush-Morgan’s Michael Pachter, who blames ESA president Mike Gallagher for the current issues with the publishers:

Lowenstein was a very savvy industry veteran who paid attention to the goings-on in the industry and cared what the community had to say. The new person… whose name completely escapes me because I’ve never met him or heard from him, is far less knowledgeable and sophisticated about this industry than Doug was and is going to make some rookie mistakes.

Doug used to be a very visible spokesperson in congress… when you’d get these [things like] Barack Obama saying videogames are corrupting our youth or MADD saying that Take-Two should pull GTA off the shelves, you would hear Lowenstein immediately shoot back. I would guess that Activision doesn’t perceive the same value from the ESA as they did under Doug’s leadership. I criticize [Gallagher’s] lack of drive to learn about the industry.

Although TV shrink Dr. Tanya Byron has recommended that video games sold in the U.K. carry both Pan European Game Information (PEGI) and British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) ratings, the video game industry wants to deal with PEGI alone.

As reported by Spong, Paul Jackson (left), director of game publishers trade group ELSPA, said:

We are an entertainment industry that produces games for all ages. It is important that during this period of consultation post-Byron we work with everyone to ensure the revised ratings platform is robust and future proof.

As games move increasingly on line, we call on all parties to embrace the PEGI Age Ratings system. As an instrument of the Video Recordings Act it would have teeth and deliver the right system to help the public make informed choices about the games they play. We are delighted the DCMS Select Committee recognised the industry made a strong case for PEGI.

Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) president Hal Halpin will appear on the CBS Evening News to discuss the Grand Theft Auto IV launch.The program airs at 6:30 PM Eastern. More details to follow…

Full Disclosure Dept: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics…

Ars Technica has a report on Jack Thompson’s claim that the sexual content in Grand Theft Auto IV is essentially pornographic.

As is his custom, Thompson once again invokes law enforcement by writing to his local US Attorney about the game’s hooker and strip club scenes:

Indictments should be returned against Take Two corporately and its Chairman, Strauss Zelnick, along with other Take Two officers. Indictment should also be against Sony and Microsoft which are making this pornographic game available to minors, and openly so, on their PS3 and Xbox systems.

Further, indictments should be handed down against Wal-Mart, Best Buy, GameStop, and all other retailers distributing this game to minors at their retail stores, openly, to kids who are only seventeen.

So, lock everyone up, then? Are the feds even talking to Thompson yet? The controversial attorney’s rant continues:

Grand Theft Auto IV is the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio.

Since polio…

While Ars Technica concludes that an IGN video (NSFW) which rolls a number of the game’s sex scenes into one segment gives Thompson ammunition, we’re not so sure.

For one thing, these are animations, not real people. But even so, protagonist Niko Bellic’s encounters with hookers in cars (notably unsexy pic at left) and strippers in clubs are all simulated; no genitalia are visible. The participants do not even appear to be unclothed. We’ve seen more graphic content in any number of R-rated films.

What’s more, the ESRB content descriptors for GTA IV list “strong sexual content” and “partial nudity.” We’re quite sure that, given the industry-rocking 2005 Hot Coffee scandal, both Take Two and the ESRB had their legal experts closely review GTA IV’s sex scenes.

Will Thompson get some publicity mileage from GTA IV’s sex scenes? Sure. Will anything come of it?

No.

Ben Fritz (left), who writes The Cut Scene blog for Variety, questions the journalistic ethics underlying exclusive game reviews.

At the center of Fritz’s concern is IGN’s recent perfect score for Grand Theft Auto IV. Fritz writes:

I’m not at all accusing IGN of being dishonest in this particular case… HOWEVER… what the hell is with the concept of an “exclusive review?” Is anyone else as troubled by this entire concept as I am?

…being the first outlet to review a highly anticipated new videogame is a big deal. It means a major boost in Web traffic or magazine sales. …But how can we trust a videogame review when the outlet running it has been given a major commercial favor — one that’s worth money — from the publisher of the game?

You never see a paper or TV station getting special access from a movie studio or TV network or book publisher to run an “exclusive review.” Imagine the L.A. Times or Roger Ebert touting their “exclusive review of ‘Iron Man.’” Absurd, right? So why do we tolerate it for a videogame?

Via: That Videogame Blog

UPDATE: IGN responds in an interview on Game Daily. Xbox Editor Hilary Goldstein said:

My problem with online journalism in general is that nobody does their due diligence. Nobody from Variety called us and said, “Hey, would you like to comment about this?” …A lot of people didn’t get the game early. So if Variety didn’t get the game early then you’re looking at somebody, I don’t know, who had a grudge on his shoulder because he didn’t even have the game yet and we’d already put out the review.

I just wish people would call. We had so many people writing comments about us and not a single person contacted us. Not Kotaku. Not Variety. Nobody called. They just all made assumptions. And of course we gave it a 10. But so did everyone else.

Today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer features a front page article on GTA IV which includes an interview with one of the authors of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games.

Authors Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson are both members of the Harvard Medical School faculty and the recently-released book has been widely acclaimed by the video game community for its reasonable - and unqiue - perspective on video game violence.

Kutner told the P-I:

For most kids and most parents, the bottom-line results of our research can be summed up in a single word: Relax… We have a long history of panicking over the introduction of new media. We have no evidence this is different.

The real question is which kids if any are at significant risk, and can we use behavior involving violent video game play as markers as what kids [should watch].

If you’re looking for more of Kutner’s thoughts, the Toronto Star has an excerpt of Grand Theft Childhood in today’s edition.

The Post-Intelligencer story also features interviews with a concerned parent, as well as with What The Play editor John Davison and Hilarie Cash, author of the upcoming book Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control.

GP: Big thanks to GamePolitics reader Phantom for the tip!

Today’s GamePolitics poll asks whether you plan to buy Grand Theft Auto IV and, if so, which version (PS3 or Xbox 360) you’re getting.

The poll is in the right sidebar.

Be sure to vote!

According to the New Zealand Herald, Kiwi gamers who purchase Grand Theft Auto IV will be getting the same edited version as their Australian neighbors.

GP readers may recall that GTA IV publisher Rockstar Games was required to sanitize the game in order to gain clearance from Australian government censors. From the Herald report:

The censorship of Grand Theft Auto IV has forced the country’s largest online retailer of games to cancel $50,000 worth of advance orders.

Meanwhile, Bob McCoskrie, a spokesman for watchdog group Family First, ripped GTA IV and called for a ban:

Players could re-enact having sex with a prostitute, beating her bloody, taking her money and running her over with a car and shooting at police officers.

It is completely naive to believe that teenagers and young children won’t have access to and be able to play the game. It is also completely unrealistic to believe that young people will not be influenced in their attitudes and behaviours by constant exposure to this type of material.

So-called ‘entertainment’ and freedom of expression should never be at the expense of the safety of our community, appropriate emotional and moral development of our children, and promoting acceptable attitudes towards women, violence and law enforcement.

While New Zealand has been know to censor video game content, it is apparently the game publisher’s decision to sell the watered-down GTA IV there: Simon Barton of Gameplanet told the newspaper: 

Everyone’s assuming it is logistics. It just makes sense for them to send us the Australian version… There’s plenty of swearing, plenty of violence [in the game]. It’s very good. But I wouldn’t want my 15-year-old playing it.

The 2007 ban on Manhunt 2 and, more recently, the report of Dr. Tanya Byron (left), have helped make the U.K. a hotbed of gaming controversy during the past ten months. 

On Friday the BBC looked at how the video game rating process takes place in the U.K., where both the Pan European Game Information system (PEGI) and the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) are involved. [Game publishers group] ELSPA head Paul Jackson explains:

The PEGI system is a classic self-regulatory system. Every publisher who is putting a game forward for publication reviews the whole game, every element of it, and puts together a report for the Pegi organisation.

The PEGI organisation then uses a set of criteria to decide what age that is appropriate for. That is how it is published across Europe.

BBFC director David Cooke adds: 

… At the moment the only games that come to the BBFC are the ones that contain gross violence which is roughly the equivalent of an 18 certificate movie or certain types of games that contain linear material that can bring them to the BBFC attention as well…

[BBFC game examiners] are people typically in their early 30s, not blokes in suits and bowler hats. They are people who in some cases actually come from the games industry.

They will play the game and sample it at all levels. They will have help from the publisher, so they have cheat codes because it isn’t necessarily easy if you are getting killed all the time.

While the two-headed system currently in place is confusing, it is expected that it will be refined with further study. Among its recommendations, the Byron Review called for a more robust, movie-style rating system.

The relationship between the National Institute on Media & the Family (NIMF) and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has often been a contentious one.

But the two organizations have joined forces in the run-up to the Grand Theft Auto IV launch to remind parents that Rockstar’s controversial game is not intended for younger players. A press release jointly issued by ESRB president Patricia Vance (left) and NIMF president David Walsh (right) reads, in part:

With [GTA IV] to be released on April 29th, parents need to be reminded to make sure their kids are playing games appropriate for their age and level of maturity. Grand Theft Auto IV is rated M (Mature for ages 17+)… The game’s rating also includes content descriptors for Intense Violence, Blood, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Partial Nudity and Use of Drugs and Alcohol.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, a parent is involved in the purchase of a video game nearly nine out of every ten times, so it is critical that parents consider the assigned rating carefully when purchasing or renting computer and video games for their children.

The ESRB and [NIMF] encourage parents to be informed and exercise their discretion when considering the purchase of all M-rated games. Parents should look for the ESRB rating on the game’s box, which provides guidance on age-appropriateness as well as describes the content in the game…

Concerned that children may be purchasing violent video games, the European Union has given the video game industry two years to develop a plan to keep such games away from younger players.

The news comes by way of a communique issued by the EU on Tuesday. MSNBC and Euractiv have comments from EU officials on the order. Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding said:

[Video game] creators have to enjoy freedom of expression but at the same time it’s an industry that impacts society… As it is not permitted to sell pornography to children, it should be so for violent video games.

EU Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva (left) added:

When children go out to play today they enter the world of joysticks. We are not quite sure where they go and there is real anxiety from parents… Our clear message today is that industry and national authorities must go further to ensure that all parents have the power to make the right decisions for themselves and their child.

While the EU has the authority to propose a legislative solution, it has elected to allow the industry an opportunity to develop a satisfactory fix during the two-year window. Currently, the Pan-European Games Information (PEGI) system is used on 20 of 27 EU member nations. However Commissioner Reding criticized its level of acceptance:

PEGI has proved to be a good system but it is not known enough.

Three countries use rating guidelines other than PEGI, whil Cyprus, Luxembourg, Romania and Slovenia have no guidelines in place.

Notably, the EU directive did not address online game sales. 

Irrepressible Gamecock Media Group CEO Mike Wilson was in Philadelphia on Tuesday as the hoopla surrounding this week’s Democratic Pennsylvania primary reached its peak.

Wilson and his crew were on hand to promote the soon-to-be-released Hail to the Chimp. Described as a “Presidential Party Game,” Hail to the Chimp was developed by Wideload Games and will be published by Gamecock for Xbox 360 and PS3 on May 27th.

In the pic at left, one of the game’s characters is shown with the famed Rocky statue at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.