PC World's Matt Peckham weighs in on HB 353, the much-discussed Utah bill originally drafted by Jack Thompson.

Peckham agrees with ESRB President Patricia Vance that the bill could prove to be a disincentive to Utah retailers to do the right thing:

The most recent amended version of H.B. 353 is a sobering bellwether of much worse to come if it passes the Utah state senate... Instead of ensuring game retailers do as they say, the bill in fact encourages them to do the exact opposite and stop promising they won't sell Mature-rated games like Fable 2 and Fallout 3 and Resident Evil 5 to underage kids and/or teens.

That's because Utah's H.B. 353 effectively criminalizes retail sales of video games to customers who don't meet a game's ratings strictures...

 

The non-cynical view: H.B. 353 is an attempt to pull game ratings under the umbrella of Utah's prevailing "truth in advertising" guidelines.

The cynical view: The bill's promoters are trying to backdoor anti-ESRB legislation by using a potentially over-broad state policy to increase governmental control of private sector activities and declare self-regulatory triumphs null and void...

UPDATE: Jack Thompson has posted a reply to Peckham's column:

All [major retailers] have publicly committed, and promised Congress, that they will participate in the game rating system and abide by it... They simply cannot now opt out of the ESRB system... Their public endorsement of the rating system is an "advertisement" under this bill...

 

[ESRB head Patricia] Vance says their is an industry "audit" which says that Utah game retailers are 94% compliant with the game ratings. She refuses to produce the audit...

GP: I must point out that Thompson's assertion that a company's merely signing on to abide by the ESRB ratings constitutes an "advertisement" seems a dubious one, at best.

While the Utah State Senate mulls HB 353, a bill which would add age rating offenses to the state's existing Truth in Advertising law, ESRB President Patricia Vance has penned an open letter to "Utah's parents and leaders."

Vance called HB 353 a "grave mistake" and warned that it could undo years of effort by the ESRB and video game retailers to keep inappropriate content from underage players:

So why is this bill likely to put an end to those very efforts it seeks to support? On its face such an amendment makes good sense; after all, if a retailer says they’re going to do something, they should do it, right?

 

While the intent of this legislation would be to hold retailers accountable for compliance with their stated policies – presumably in that negligible 6% of instances where they fail to comply – the unfortunate reality is that it would introduce a liability that will likely force many retailers to seriously consider abandoning their voluntary policies and ratings education programs, undoing years of progress made on behalf of parents and their children.

The bill passed the Utah House, albeit in a somewhat diluted fashion, last week by a 70-2 margin.

For the full text of Vance's letter, hit the jump.

The Children and Youth Committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives held a hearing on video game violence today at City Hall in Philadelphia.

Rep. Ronald Waters (D, left) appeared to be the point person for the hearing, although Rep. Louise Bishop, who chairs the committee, was also on hand. As GamePolitics has previously reported, Rep. Waters has been questioning the role of violent video games in real-world violence for some time. Since Philly is his home turf, so it's not surprising that he took the lead.

GamePolitics was on hand for most of the hearing and supplied a live feed via Twitter. We also secured some video of the proceedings which we will get uploaded to YouTube over the weekend.

Four witnesses testified:

• a project manager from the Philadelphia chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police
• Prof. Patrick Markey of nearby Villanova University
• Two members of the Legislature's research organization
   

Here are the actual GP posts to Twitter. They are original, except that we've added endings that Twitter truncated in a few cases:

1. I am heading out to cover video game violence hearings in Philly today. A state legislator is chairing. I will be tweeting from the hearing... 
2. Just arrived at philly city council... Witness not well informed. Said that law on books in PA to prevent minors from buying m-rated games. But that's incorrect...
3. Dr. Patrick Markey now testifying as to difference between correlation and causation. Markey has done research, generally favorable to games in past...
4. Markey says violent games have a small, but consistent effect, but only on certain kids with pre-dispositions...
5. Rep. Waters spends about 7 mins criticizing violent games with police shooting. This is a big issue in Philly lately as we have lost a lot of cops...
6. Rep. Waters said that the industry pulled 25 to Life off shelves. That is not correct...
7. Poor Prof. Markey seems to be serving as a proxy for the game biz. The reps. Are directing their anger about games at him...
8. ESA apparently mailed in their testimony. The reps mentioned written testimony from ESA VP Sally Jefferson.
9. Prof. Markey still getting follow-ups. Rep now wants to clarify Markey's suggested correlation numbers...
10. Rep. is bringing up that military uses games to train personnel, so it must be an effective way to train people to do things.
11. 2 guys up now from PA Joint State Govt Commission, research wing of PA legislature. They were asked to look into violent games. GP reported on this in late 2008.
12. These guys are not telling the reps what they want to hear... Letting them know that game laws invariably unconstitutional...
13. Wow, one of the reps just raised the idea of a five per cent tax on violent games to fund public education on game ratings...
14. Rep. Samuelson suggests no public funds should be allocated to violent game developers - the Texas model (although he is unaware of that, clearly)...
15. Rep. Murphy suggests that the state should mandate parental controls.... Guess he doesn't realize that they are already built in...
16. Reps are upset over line in state report that players can get some benefits from violent games. 3 [Reps.] have now have objected.
17. I've taken some shaky cam video here, but just found a nice, steady place to put my camera... Will post vids on YouTube tonite or tomorrow
18. Rep. Waters again said that the game biz pulled 25 to Life off market, which is not true. Plus, he keeps calling it 21 to Life
19. Rep. Waters asking what are penalties for selling violent games to minors.
20. Rep. Cox (?) asking why games are so bad compared to violent movies, music, etc. High praise for ESRB, talks about parental responsibility...
21. Chairwoman is asking about parental control features. Rep. Samuelson back again complaining about that phrase "violent games can have beneficial effects"
22. Rep. Youngblood asks if violent games desensitize kids to death.
23. Hearing now over.

GP: Although the representatives seemed quite frustrated with violent games during the earlier part of the hearing, by its end they had calmed down a good bit. In particular, the testimony of Dr. Markey and the two gentlemen from the PA Joint State Government Commission seemed to allay many of their concerns with information about research, parental controls and the ESRB ratings, as well as past failures of video game legislation. Of course, that's not to say that the issue was decided today.

Both Markey and the Joint Commission employees who testified were part of the Pennsylvania Task Force on Violent Interactive Video Games, which, as GamePolitics reported in December, recommended against legislating games.

Despite a bumpy two-year run which has seen a 25% membership drop and a disastrous 2008 E3, Michael Gallagher, CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, is doing okay for himself.

IRS records filed by the ESA indicate that Gallagher was paid $789,929 for the reporting period of April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008. Since Gallagher didn't take over at the ESA until late May of 2007, or almost two months into the reporting period, we can probably assume that his annual salary was actually a bit higher. Additionally, Gallagher collected $19,015 in benefits.

By way of comparison, Gallagher's predecessor, Doug Lowenstein, earned $744,344 for the prior year, plus a benefits package valued at $96,616.

It's only fair to point out in Gallagher's defense that many of the conditions which led to a downsized E3 and drastically elevated membership fees were in place before he was hired.

On the same document the ESA reports the salary of ESRB President Patricia Vance as $535,397. It's apparent that the head of the video game industry's rating body has bounced back nicely from the 2005 Hot Coffee fiasco. Highlighted by a successful outreach program to parents and public service messages delivered in concert with various state-level political officials, the ESRB seems to be performing at peak efficiency.

When I ponder the things that I'd like to see in video games someday, a fully nekkid Congressman is not high on the list.

Nonetheless, Kotaku reports that a cut scene in GTA IV: The Lost and Damned, scheduled to release tomorrow, features a male character displayed with full frontal nudity:

[Congressman] Stubbs, in his first meeting with lead character Johnny Klebbitz, is receiving a massage at the private gentleman's club Jousters when we meet him. The Congressman, dressed in nothing but a towel, quickly becomes pretty comfortable with his new biker friend, choosing to deliver his monologue in the buff...

The ESRB rating for the game—which is "M" for Mature—does make mention of the gratuitous digital d*ck on display, noting that the game has "Nudity" in its content. The original Grand Theft Auto IV is listed as having only "Partial nudity."

The Entertainment Merchants Association, the trade group which represents the interests of numerous video game retailers, has weighed in against game-oriented legislation currently before the Congress.

GamePolitics readers will recall last month's report that Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) had proposed a measure in Congress which would require cigarette-like warning labels for any game rated T (13+) or higher by the ESRB.

The EMA has termed the proposed legislation "unnecessary."

As we have previously noted, Rep. Baca has proposed a number of bills targeting video games over the years. To date, none have passed. In 2008 Esquire named him to its list of Ten Worst Members of Congress.

UPDATE: We've received the EMA's full statement on the Baca bill:

Retailers educate parents about the ESRB video game ratings and content descriptors and enforce the "Mature" rating at the point of sale. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission found that children it sent into video game stores to buy Mature-rated games were turned down 80% of the time.

 

The video game turn-down rate is higher than the turn-down rate for movie theaters and R-rated tickets, DVD retailers and R-rated and “unrated” DVDs, and music retailers and “Parental Advisory”-labeled albums. In fact, it is the highest turn-down rated ever recorded for an entertainment category in any of the undercover shopper surveys the FTC has conducted since 2000.

A report that Iran was "joining" the ESRB received wide play on game news sites last week. However, that information appears to be erroneous.

When the story first broke, GamePolitics immediately questioned the report, which originated in the Tehran Times.

We also put in a request to the ESRB for clarification. Spokesman Eliot Mizrachi took time from his holiday break to respond to GamePolitics:

Our ratings apply to games available at retail in the U.S. and Canada. No membership is required to submit games to ESRB.

 

Companies from other countries may submit for rating if the game is to be sold in the U.S. and/or Canadian market... Our ratings apply to games sold in the U.S. and Canada only...

 

We have not had any discussions with Iran about their adopting our rating system.

There is a somewhat curious report in the Tehran Times which says that Iran is "joining" the ESRB.

One interpretation of this is that the Iranian government will henceforth require that games sold there carry ESRB ratings. Another possibility is that the Iranians are instituting their own rating system and using "ESRB" generically, in the same way that xerox is commonly used to refer to copy machines.

We're guessing the latter, since comments from an Iranian official involved in the project indicate that some sort of local editing process took place. From the Tehran Times:

The managing director of the National Foundation for Computer Games Behruz Minaii announced that Iran will be joining the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) next week...

Minaii added that the idea of joining ESRB was initiated last year and since then, 20 experts from different religious, psychological, social and media organizations have worked on compiling the project.

“Afterwards, several members of the Guardian Council and scholars of the Qom Seminary and different universities of the country did the final editing,” he remarked.

The first part of the plan is now ready and the next parts will also be completed through establishing this organization, he stated.

We've got a request into the ESRB for clarification as to any potential involvement on their part.

Via: Kotaku
 

A nice card from the ESRB arrived in yesterday's e-mail...

Last week GamePolitics reported on a bizarre incident in which more than a dozen prominent game journalists were sent Animal Crossing: Wild World Nintendo DS cartridges which contained a racial slur.

MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo, who broke the story, reports that he subsequently queried used game seller GameStop and the ESRB as to whether the Animal Crossing incident exposes a flaw in the system whereby embedded user-generated content might exceed the content rating.

Both GameStop and the ESRB view the Animal Crossing episode as an anomaly and deny a larger problem. MTV's Totilo writes:

ESRB spokesperson Eliot Mizrachi, told me... “Just as with online-enabled games that allow features like chat, ESRB ratings cannot anticipate and therefore consider user-generated content in the ratings we assign,” he wrote. “Besides, as you mentioned, saving content to the actual game medium is pretty uncommon in today’s games. Most games are read-only with the saved content being stored on the system and not on the game medium itself.”...

The ESRB may not have much reason to worry that questionable content will make it to consumers because gaming chain GameStop claims to be scrubbing the content from re-sold games. Chris Olivera, spokesman for GameStop, told me in a phone interview that his company has a “proprietary” process that wipes consoles and games clean before they are sold back to consumers...

GP: GameStop and the ESRB make a good case here. It's important to remember that the offending DS cart was not purchased through retail channels, but rather was mailed out by Nintendo's own PR department.

To the understandable chagrin of publishers, more than a few video game websites have discovered that the ESRB can be an excellent source for scraps of news concerning unannounced titles.  For example, Siliconera spilled the beans on three upcoming Atlus titles in the last month just by cruising the ESRB's latest rating assignments.

For its part, Atlus (Persona, Trauma Center) responded by ribbing the industry’s ratings body with a jokey press release:

Our experiment has been a rousing success.  Allowing information about our upcoming titles to be silently posted on ESRB’s website has been a triumph, and we’ve decided to abandon all direct, overt disclosures of our future games in favor of quietly allowing the posting of new titles onto ESRB.org...

 

We’re sure we’ll have everyone doing this at some point, following in our footsteps.  And maybe at some point it will force us to change direction.  But in the mean time, we really feel that indirectly leaking all future game announcements and hoping a few people stumble upon them and tell everyone they know is the best way to go...

While it’s nice to see a publisher taking the high road, we wonder if Atlus itself isn't the one at fault here.  Since last June, publishers have had the option to request that the ESRB hold off on posting a game’s rating information until its official announcement or ship date.

Via: Siliconera
 
-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Correspondent Andrew Eisen…

The publisher of a sex game has taken the video game industry and its U.S. content rating board to task.

As reported by Spong, D-Dub Software, which publishes BoneTown, claims that it will create an "adult video game industry." The sex game company says that it is frustrated by restrictions put in place by console manufacturers and the ESRB.

Currently, the big three system makers won't license games which are rated Adults Only (AO) by the ESRB, leaving only the PC as a potential development platform. However, major retailers won't stock AO games on any system, leaving online distribution as the only viable option for such products. D-Dub CEO "Hod" says that the company will pursue the online model:

It doesn’t make sense. The ratings boards are not telling us that these games aren’t for kids. We know that already. What they’re telling us is that adult games shouldn’t exist at all. We don’t agree, and neither does our customer base of adults who are interested in games that might include themes like sex, drugs, and language.

 

Since they’ve made it so that games like ours can’t be marketed and distributed through the channels other video games use, we are starting a new industry to get this game out to our customers.

Although the Spong article mentions that BoneTown has received an AO from the ESRB, we're not finding that using the ESRB search widget located in GP's lower right sidebar.

GP: Thanks to GP correspondent Andrew Eisen for the tip...

When gamers last heard from Bill McCollum, the Florida Attorney General was fretting that the motion-controlled Wii version of Manhunt 2 would have a generation of kids practicing to be killers. As GamePolitics reported in June of 2007, McCollum apparently got that idea from Jack Thompson.

These days, McCollum is, like many political colleagues in other states, urging parents to follow ESRB content ratings while shopping for holiday gifts. A press release on his official website quotes the Republican A.G.:

Though the holiday season is one of the busiest times of year, it is also perhaps the most important time of the year for consumers to make sure they know what they're buying for their loved ones. The ESRB rating system provides parents and others with age and content information which can be informative tools when purchasing games for family and friends.

McCollum's press release also quotes ESRB head Patricia Vance as well as ESA CEO Michael Gallagher.

But not Jack Thompson.

AS we enter the holiday shopping season, the ESRB has apparently been working overtime to gain endorsements for its content rating system from state-level political heavyweights.

In recent days GamePolitics has reported that key elected officials in Mississippi, Missouri, Kansas and New Jersey have endorsed the ESRB ratings.

The latest to climb on board is Nebraska's Attorney General Jon Bruning (R). Yesterday, Bruning and the ESRB jointly launched a public service announcement which will air on local radio and TV. The campaign is designed to raise parental awareness of game ratings as parents begin their holiday shopping. Bruning, no doubt, is also expecting that the ads will raise parental awareness of Bruning.

In the spot, the A.G. is seen playing Xbox 360 game with his children. The game isn't shown, but we can safely assume it isn't GTA IV or Left 4 Dead. Bruning offers a comment in the accompanying press release:

Parents should be involved and take an active role in choosing games for their kids. The ESRB ratings are an effective tool every parent can use to pick video games that are age-appropriate and family-friendly.  I use them when I buy games for my children.  I hope Nebraskans will too.

GP: In addition to Bruning and others who signed onto the ESRB campaign recently, more than a dozen elected officials, primarily governors and A.G.s, are already on board.

As GamePolitics has pointed out before, the ESRB PSAs are a win-win for the game industry as well as for the political figures involved. The ESRB proactively gets its message out to parents. The political figures in turn are able  to promote an image of helpfulness and concern. Production costs are on the game industry's dime, and, because they are public service announcements, radio and TV stations run the ads for free.

From a strategic perspective, this campaign has been little short of brilliant. Whoever thought of it deserves a raise.

Mom and Dad forgot to turn an assignment in, apparently.

While lavishly praising the video game industry in its 13th Annual Video Game Report Card, the National Institute on Media and the Family has tagged parents with an "incomplete."

Actually, the "I" grade is NIMF's cutesy way of saying, well, not much, to be honest. Here are the grades along with NIMF's commentary:

ESRB Ratings.... A The addition of ratings summaries is yet another step forward in the growing list of improvements that the ESRB has made in recent years.

ESRB Ratings Education.... A  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.

Retailer Ratings Enforcement.... B+  The 80 percent enforcement rate shows significant progress with still some room for improvement.

Gaming Console Manufacturers.... A  Parental controls, timing devices and parent education efforts are all major
improvements giving parents more tools to supervise game play.

Parental Involvement.... Incomplete  The focus of this year’s report card is providing parents with the information they need. All segments of the industry have made significant improvements in recent years. Parents now have more information and tools than ever before. However, the constant changes present new challenges. Parents need to pay more attention to the amount of time and the types of games their kids play. The parent guide section in this report card is intended to motivate and equip parents to do this.

GP: We can't argue with the grades assigned to the game industry categories by NIMF, and the industry must certainly be pleased. There was a time, and not so long ago, that the ESA and ESRB dreaded this day as NIMF head David Walsh and Sen. Joe Lieberman would step to a Capitol Hill podium and deliver their annual video game beatdown, er, report card.

As to the incomplete for parents, it's meaningless, since NIMF has no way to measure it.

We must also say that the process would be far more coherent if NIMF maintained the same grading categories from year to year. The 2007 version, for example (which was far less complementary to the industry), included grades for "Retailer Policies," (broken down by National, Specialty and Rental) and "The Gaming Industry."

The 2005 version absolutely savaged the industry and included grades for "Ratings Accuracy," "Arcade Survey," and "Industry's 10-year cumulative grade." 

In addition to the grades, the report card contains about 30 pages of material regarding topics such as game addiction and a section on aggression research by Prof. Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University.

Finally, NIMF's unfortunate decision to accept game industry funding clouds their grading effort. Inevitably, there are those who will say that the one-time watchdog has become a lapdog.

New Jersey State Senate President Richard Codey (D) has teamed up with the ESRB on a public service announcement designed to remind parents about video game content ratings.

Timed to coincide with the holiday shopping season, the PSA will air on local television and radio. Codey and ESRB President Patricia Vance unveiled the new campaign during a press conference at the Statehouse in Trenton yesterday.

In addition to his long service in the State Senate, Codey also served as New Jersey's interim governor after the 2004 resignation of James McGreevey.

Of his involvement with the ESRB, Codey said:

As a father, I know parents face tough decisions these days about the media they allow into their home. There’s simply no substitute for parental involvement and responsibility, and it’s important that parents play an active role in choosing games for their children. With the ESRB ratings, parents don’t have to feel like a Scrooge if their kids want a game that’s not appropriate for their age. The ESRB is a great resource that provides plenty of tools for parents to determine if a game is appropriate or to find a suitable substitute...

 

While many parents are aware of the ratings, and are making sensible game purchase decisions as a result, there is always more that can be done to raise awareness. Working with ESRB, we hope that these ads will help arm parents with the information they need to make the right choices about the video games they deem appropriate for their children and families.

Vance added:

Video games are no different than movies and TV shows in that they are created for a diverse audience of all ages. That is why it is so important that parents remember to check the rating when purchasing games for their children. I’m pleased to be joining Senator Codey in announcing this effort to reach out to New Jersey’s parents and educate them about the ratings.

Also on hand to support the campaign was Diane Zierler, president of the New Jersey Parent Teacher Association.

In a no-holds-barred interview with Crispy Gamer, Entertainment Consumers Association president Hal Halpin dishes on the uneasy relationship between Washington, D.C. and the video game community.

As part of his leadership role with the ECA, Hal does quite a few interviews, but this one with CG's James Fudge is probably the most in-depth yet. Here are some of Hal's thoughts:

On game publisher group the ESA's new (in 2008) practice of making campaign donations:

The [ESA] represents the rights of game publishing companies and as such has a duty to do what it can to influence legislators by lobbying. I know that starting up a PAC (Political Action Committee) was a decision that they grappled with for over a decade... PACs can be effective tools, but yes, you do run the risk – nowadays – that the ends may not justify the means...

On game ratings and whether the industry does enough to keep mature-themed games away from minors:

I’ve been a fan of ESRB for quite some time. Of all of the ratings systems... it really is the most comprehensive and valuable... That said, there’s always room for improvement. Perhaps ESRB having more independence from the ESA would be one great step. Another might be to work more closely with us... which we’re working on...

 

I do [think the industry is well at keeping M-rated games away from minors]...

On supposed tensions between the ESA (publishers group) and the ECA (consumers group):

We should be clear that the ESA represents the rights of game publishing companies, not gamers... It’s a trade association that looks after the interests of their member corporations... That said, much of the legislative work that the ESA has done over the years, with regard to First Amendment in particular, has benefitted the sector as a whole – gamers included.

 

As Mike Gallagher (ESA president) and I have discussed several times, the vast majority of the time ESA and ECA are on the same page... but there are clearly other times where our interests are necessarily divergent. Inherently, Mike’s issues will sometimes be in opposition to the best interests of consumers solely because they’re in the best interests of publishing companies...

On frequent game violence critic Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT):

Joe Lieberman has been largely misunderstood and painted with a very broad brush in my opinion. While I haven’t agreed with much of what he has said in the past, he alone among legislators was responsible for effecting non-legislative change in our business and did it with a lot of class, I might add.

 

Again, back when I was running [game retailers group] IEMA, I received a call from one of his staff inviting me to his office in Hartford. We had a frank meeting in which he requested that game retailers begin carding for the sale of mature-rated games in much the same way that movie theatre owners were doing, via self-regulatory efforts, with R-rated movies. The IEMA retailers... met the challenge head-on and reacted quickly and efficiently – changing the way in which games were sold, forever.

On game rentals and used game trade-ins by consumers, which some publishers and developers would like to see ended:

I understand the concerns that developer friends of mine have about not getting a second bite of the apple... In the movie business, they produce a theatrical version and then DVD, Blu-ray, Video on Demand (VoD), PSP and pay-per-view versions...

 

[Game biz types] see rental and used as businesses in which they don’t get to participate. And while I understand and appreciate their perspective... I’m still not convinced that rental and used are bad for the sector. We’ve witnessed how rental has provided a low-cost venue for people to try before you buy; same for used...

On the U.S. Supreme Court and its potential impact on video games:

Well, [a change in the balance of the court] will most definitely present a problem for the industry, but not necessarily consumers. The more conservative judges are also the ones that tend to side with intellectual property owners over consumers, for instance. Tech policy is in for a major shift from the right to the left in my opinion, and that would be very good for consumers, but quite disconcerting for the IP-concerned trade associations (MPAA, RIAA and ESA).

 

We’ve also heard that the conservative judges would be more likely to be open to anti-games/gamer bills, so a shift to the more liberal side would be good for both the trade and consumers in that regard.

Hal also points interested gamers to a detailed listing of ECA's position statements.

FULL DISCLOSURE DEPT: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics.

With the holiday shopping season upon us, a pair of Midwestern attorneys general have reminded parents to be mindful of ESRB ratings as they purchase video games for their children.

In Kansas, WIBW reports on comments by Attorney General Steve Six (D, left):

As a parent of four young children, I know how important it is to be informed about the content in video games and to make sure games purchased as gifts are age appropriate for your child. The ESRB computer and video game rating system is the best guide parents can use to determine if a game’s content is right for their children.

Meanwhile, Ozarks First reports on a more generic warning from the office of Missouri Attorney General. No comments are provided. That's likely because current A.G. Jay Nixon (D) was elected governor on November 4th and is in the midst of transitioning to his new role. 

With Black Friday and the traditional start of the holiday shopping season just around the corner, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (D) has reminded parents to follow ESRB rating guidelines when purchasing games for their kids.

As reported by the Madison County Herald, Hood said:

Every Christmas I review the ratings to determine what is appropriate for my children. I want other parents to know the ratings...

As GamePolitics reported, Hood issued a similar warning during the 2007 holiday season.

GP: For handy reference, GamePolitics features the ESRB's rating widget in our right sidebar.

As of next month, officials in the Canadian province of New Brunswick will require video game retailers to be licensed. The move is intended to keep violent games away from younger players.

As reported by local newspaper the Times and Transcript, the new regulation will make it easier for inspectors to ensure that the game shops are complying with ESRB ratings at point of sale. DVD sellers are already subject to licensing in the province. Lisa Harrity, a spokeswoman for New Brunswick Public Safety Department, commented:

We license and regulate the retailers only. Up until now, this did not include videogames... [The ESRB provides] a video game rating system that's used throughout North America. The issue is ensuring that our retailers are complying.

GP: This system would be unworkable in the United States. Here, court decisions have held that it is unconstitutional to base government enforcement actions on a private standard such as the ESRB ratings.

While the addition of rating summaries may head off some of the ratings-focused legislation currently under consideration by Congress, the reaction to yesterday's ESRB announcement was distinctly mixed.

GameSpot's Brendan Sinclair writes that some of the new summaries contain plot spoilers:

Consumers using the content descriptors to make decisions about games they will play themselves should be wary... The ESRB write-ups can also include details of plot twists and other spoilers. One line from the Resistance 2 write-up... reveals a significant plot detail from a climactic moment of the game. Fallout 3 is another title with a key revelation included in the summary.

"The primary goal of our new rating summaries is to give further aid to parents in making informed game choices for their children," an ESRB representative told GameSpot. "The summaries highlight content that factored into to the rating assignment, and the intent is always to have them do so without needlessly revealing 'spoilers.'"

Meanwhile, Joystiq's Alexander Sliwinski screams, too much information!:

The ESRB is going down the BBFC's road of being overly descriptive in its content ratings and thus opening itself up to the inevitable, context-lacking descriptions of things like "implied child rape" and lesbian alien sex...

We're totally going to make a game out of this. Try covering up the game titles and matching them with the content summary blurbs!

Brian Crecente of Kotaku was generally positive about the ESRB's new plan, but had a worry, too:

While the [CoD] World at War description seems spot on, I do wonder who will end up writing these once the system has been in place for awhile. Hopefully not the publishers.

GP: The view here is that the rating summaries are a smart move on two fronts: they provide parents with more information and offer the ESRB a defense against being legislated. Hopefully, they will address the spoiler issue going forward.

Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) have praised a new ratings supplement announced by the ESRB today. Both senators have been harsh critics of the video game industry in the past, lending extra weight to their support for the inititiative, which the ESRB is calling “rating summaries.”

The summaries, which provide additional detail on game ratings, can be accessed via the ESRB website or through sites which host the ESRB widget (like the one in GP's sidebar). The ESRB's new mobile site allows parents to check the summaries in real-time while making game purchasing decisions. The new rating summaries go into effect today and apply to all games rated after July 1, 2008.

Of the enhancement, ESRB president Patricia Vance said:

Parents can always use more help when making choices as to which games are right for their children. With our new rating summaries, which provide exclusive and unprecedented insight into the nature of the content that triggered a given rating assignment, parents will be that much more empowered in making those choices.

Sen. Clinton said:

This new supplement to the ratings is a real gift for parents as we head into this holiday season.  Parents need all the information they can get to make more informed decisions about what’s appropriate for their children.  These new rating summaries offer more helpful information than ever before to help parents to get involved and get informed.

While Sen. Lieberman added:

For well over a decade I have called upon the video game industry to inform consumers about the content in video games so they could make the right choices for their children.  One result was the creation of the ESRB rating system... The ESRB has now taken consumer education one step further with their new rating summaries, which provide a greater level of detail about game content to help parents be even more prepared to make informed game selections for their children.  I applaud the ESRB for taking this proactive step to inform video game consumers.

Also on board are National PTA president Jan Harp Domene and Dr. David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a frequent game industry critic.

Check out Far Cry 2's ESRB page for an example of the new rating summaries.

GP: This is a smart move by the increasingly proactive ESRB. The rating summaries certainly can't hurt and the backing of Hillary and Lieberman may assist in heading off a pair of bills presently in Congress which seek to bring "truth" to video game ratings.

In unusually strong language, the editorial staff of video site GameTrailers.com has condemned the ESRB for forcing the removal of Fallout 3 trailers last week.

The comments were made in a podcast released Friday. GameTrailers editor-in-chief Shane Satterfield (left) and staffer "Grumpy" ripped the ESRB which, in addition to rating game content, enforces the industry's advertising standards.

The segment on the ESRB starts just after the 26-minute mark of the podcast. Here's a sample:

Shane: You may wonder why all the trailers ever released for Fallout 3 were removed from GameTrailers.com. Well the reason that happened is because of our good pals at the ESRB.

Grumpy: Wankers! ...I am just absolutely flabbergasted about the ESRB. They're a bunch of bleepwads sitting in Washington.

Shane: Hear, hear!

Grumpy: ...they get publishers to pull video footage. They assisted in getting the Fallout 3 ads taken out of Washington because some dumb bleepwit... on a bus got upset that they were showing images of decimated Washington...

Shane: Never watched a movie before!

Grumpy: Exactly. It's a futuristic, post-apocalyptic game. I am so sick of this nanny state... they are not a government organization. They are a body made up of unqualified nincompoops... unfortunately, they're taking the nanny state to the nth degree... They make the FCC look like a bunch of broad-minded, non-censorship individuals... It sucks that Bethesda had to pull all this Fallout 3 stuff, because it was bleeping good media...

Shane: All age-gated...

Grumpy: ...nobody could get at it. But because some little toe-rag at ESRB decides to get pissed off about something, all that good work is gone... Good job, Bethesda. It sucks that they have to kowtow to the ESRB...

Shane: I hate the ESRB... The week before that we had gotten an exclusive on a trailer... suddenly we get a call... and the publisher is telling us to take it down because of the ESRB... The ESRB can only regulate media that the publishers send us. Anything that we create in-house, as GameTrailers, they can't touch... we'll make our own violent-as-hell trailer that they can't do anything about. So we did. We put it up, it was huge... then we get a call from publisher X [who said] "...the ESRB is putting pressure on us and so that bleep is going to run downhill to where we can't work with you guys unless you do what the ESRB says" ...they are like the frickin' Mafia... These people have totally gone like a frickin' power trip...

GP: Thanks to GP reader Yukimura for the tip.

UPDATE: The ESRB has declined to comment on this story.

If you thought being permanently disbarred would cause Jack Thompson to ride off into the sunset, guess again.

The ex-attorney is currently seeing fire and damnation in Bethesda's recent recall of Fallout 3 trailer videos. A rambling letter from Thompson to the Federal Trade Commission accuses the ESRB of duplicity in the enforcement of its advertising guidelines:

The ESRB’s [advertising] Principles and Guidelines are not intended to protect the public.  They are obviously intended to protect the video game industry from the public backlash prior to a hyperviolent game’s commercial release.   The ESRB, by allowing such violence in games but not in the advertising is institutionally mandating the cloaking of a game’s real content from the public in advertising.

Thus, the ESRB is actively using its “watchdog” muscle to intimidate game developers into participating in the ESRB’s long-standing shell game by which it has tried to hoodwink Congress and the American people into thinking that the video game rating system is working, that the ratings are reliable, and that minors are being protected from the sale of “Mature” games... 

And, even though Take-Two has zilch to do with Fallout 3, Thompson cannot resist taking a shot at the GTA publisher:

Take-Two, for example, knows that if it adhered to “truth in advertising,” most of its Grand Theft Auto games never would have made it out of the warehouse.  Take-Two has figured out how to collaborate with the ESRB in this shell game by which false advertising cloaks the real nature of their games until the games are released, and then it is too late...

 

Bethesda’s only sin was that it advertised truthfully what its game Fallout 3 is all about.  The ESRB’s idiotic but telling response has fashioned a noose that I expect either the FTC or Congress to slip around the ESRB’s neck...

Full letter after the jump...

Sites which host game footage were advised by Bethesda yesterday that they must take down any trailers for Fallout 3.

With the highly-anticipated, M-rated game launching today, the move is ill-timed, to say the least. Maximum PC cites an e-mail from Bethesda VP Pete Hines:

In connection with ESRB's advertising guidelines, you are instructed to remove immediately any of our Fallout 3 trailers from your website, pending further notice.

Meanwhile, Edge Online speculates that a Fallout 3 trailer which shows an adversary's head exploding in slo-mo, might be at fault.

The ESRB maintains and enforces guidelines for game advertising. The content rating organization has occasionally intervened with game trailers in the past.

Kotaku reports that the violence level in Midway's upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe has been toned down in order to earn a T (13 and older) rating from the ESRB.

If so, the move is clearly intended to boost sales, since an M rating would make some parents think twice about buying the game.

With Midway in dire financial straits, it's hard to argue with the decision.

Some gamers, however, are lamenting the fact that a very stylistic fatal move involving the Joker has been edited. You can check out the Joker fatality in the video at left from this year's Leipzig game conference.

From Kotaku's Michael McWhertor:

[MK vs DC has] been changed up a bit, toned down to just slightly less than awesome to secure that highly coveted T-rating that Midway and Warner Bros. are so adamant about. In the latest build, Joker still whips out his prank gun, a "BANG!" flag unfurling. Unfortunately, you won't see the follow up of Joker shooting someone in the face; that actually happens off screen now, the headshot safely out of sight...

Sure, it's disappointing — Joker's original finishing move was one of the best we've ever seen — but the game would simply not exist with an M-rating.

Sega, publisher of the upcoming MadWorld, is working closely with the ESRB on the bloody game's content, according to a report on MTV Multiplayer.

Sega's goal, of course, is to avoid a sales-killing Adults Only rating. It's more or less a given that black-and-white (and red) MadWorld will be tagged with at least an M rating in the United States.

Of the cooperation, MTV Multiplayer's Patrick Klepek writes:

Sega is working closely with the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to ensure the game receives just an M rating, they told me. The ESRB receives new builds on a regular basis and Sega notes their feedback. Sega wants them to feel “part of the process” of developing “MadWorld” and isn’t looking to surprise them...

 

But don’t let the ESRB’s involvement make you nervous; “MadWorld” is plenty violent right now. It looks like “Sin City” was bathed in a bucket of blood.

As GamePolitics reported in August, Sega is similarly working with the BBFC on smoothing over MadWorld's path to a successful U.K. release. It's unclear, however, whether MadWorld will see release in other violence-sensitive markets, including Japan, Germany and Australia.

Although MadWorld is not scheduled for release until March, the game has already been the subject of at least one call for a ban.

If the entire front cover of a video game box was covered by an age rating, do you think parents might notice?

A post over at GoNintendo shows what might be a new trend of plus-sized game ratings in Germany. An illustration at GoNintendo shows poor SpongeBob mostly obscured by the game's USK (Germany’s software rating organization) rating.

Curious, we checked out Nintendo’s German website and browsed through over three hundred games. We found only two that had the enlarged USK ratings: Wario Land and a math game for the DS. The rest were no larger than your run-of-the-mill ESRB, PEGI, or BBFC rating. 

Unless they've been playing too much real-life beer pong, GamePolitics readers will likely recall the recent flap over the Wii-ware title formerly known as Beer Pong.

Released this week with an E rating, the renamed Pong Toss from JV Games sparked earlier protests from educators as well as a call from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) for the ESRB to re-rate the game as Adults Only.

Time has now bellied up to the bar to offer own examination of the Beer Pong controversy and finds that it was predictable given concerns over binge drinking:

Perhaps, in retrospect, JV Games should have seen this coming. After all, drinking games and video games may be two of college-kids' favorite pasttimes, but they are also a source of constant complaints from their middle-aged parents...

 

The controversy isn't entirely surprising. The point of beer pong is to get your friends drunk... Last fall, Georgetown University banned beer-pong... The University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Tufts University have also banned drinking games.

 

The anti-pong activism strikes JV Games' [co-owner Jag] Jaegar as somewhat fruitless. As long as students "have access to alcohol, they will create drinking games out of any activity," he says. More to the point, if students have access to alcohol, they'll drink it — no games necessary.

The ESA, which represents North American video game publishers, has released its 2008 Annual Report.

Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica provides a nice summary of the business and legislative highlights.

In reading the ESA report, we were most struck by the sheer volume of legislative efforts directed at video games on both the state and federal level. Many of these we were aware of and reported on here at GamePolitics. A few others flew under the media radar. Here's the state list:

• Colorado: The ESA persuaded the Denver transit company not to ban M-rated game ads on buses
• Connecticut: tax incentives were approved for video game production
• Delaware: legislation directed at point-of-sale died in committee
• Florida: approved financial incentives for game development
• Indiana: game legislation died in committee
• Massachusetts: game legislation is stalled in committee
• Mississippi: game legislation died in committee
• Missouri: game legislation died in committee
• New Jersey: game legislation died in committee
• New York: 2007 bills passed Assembly & Senate, but a joint version was not finalized (in 2008, however, NY adopted a less restrictive video game law)
• New Mexico: "No Child Left Inside" act would have levied a 1% tax on games but failed to pass
• North Carolina: video game legislation carried over into 2008 session
• North Carolina: tax incentive bill introduced (but recently defeated)
• Oklahoma: bill requiring written notice to buyers that games contain violent content carried over to 2008 session
• Oregon: video game legislation stuck in committee
• Puerto Rico: video game legislation carried over into 2008 session
• Puerto Rico: tax on games to fund recreation programs stuck in committee
• Tennessee: legislation introduced to study effects of violent media
• Texas: tax incentives passed for game devs (although ESA report fails to mention content restrictions on such funding)
• Utah: video game legislation died in committee as did a resolution urging the state A.G. to file amicus briefs in other states where the game biz was challenging legislation
• Wisconsin: a 1% game tax is under consideration

On the federal level, the ESA cites four bills introduced in both the House and Senate. Also mentioned are the Annual Video Game Report Card issued in Washington, D.C. by the National Institute on Media and the Family as well as presidential candidate Mitt Romney's "ocean of filth" TV spot decrying mature content in games.

The ESA also recounts a number of parental awareness partnerships forged by the ESRB with state elected officials.