GameStop Unveils Enticing Family Site

Retailer GameStop has launched a website called GameStop Playground, designed to appeal to families - and possibly to put anxious parents at ease about buying video games for their kids. It features activities, mini-games and videos alongside tools geared at helping parents understand the ESRB's ratings, with game recommendations for kids.

Currently, there's a Wall-E minigame, printable paper dolls for My Fashion Studio, and instructions on how to draw LEGO Batman, on which I am sure we could all afford a lesson.

GameStop kicks off the site launch with an activity contest, where participants come up with an activity for GameSpot's kid-friendly activity book launching this winter. The winning activity gets featured in the book, and the winner also gets a $500 GameStop gift card. Kotaku readers who are parents, now is when you force your children to enter and totally help them cheat, and then buy $480 worth of games for yourself and then give the kid a used GBA title, or something.

I'm joking. Kinda.

[GameStop Playground]

ESRB Rates My Japanese Coach, Ratchet & Clank Future Follow Up

Hey, geeks and otakus, there's good news on the edutainment front, as the Entertainment Software Ratings Board has given ratings to a slew of new games, including Ubisoft's My Japanese Coach. Yes, now that you've mastered the Spanish and French languages via your Nintendo DS, your next challenge is the tongue of the Japanese people. Finally, the mysteries of Rhythm Tengoku's menu screen will be unlocked to me! It's a perfect compliment to your fansubbed anime of choice.

Also making a rated appearance at ESRB.org is Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, the PlayStation 3 game that can't seem to keep its existence a secret. Surely, the title must be announced at E3 next week.

Finally, in other exciting news, Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium has been rated for a Wii release, meaning its Virtual Console appearance could be just months to a year away.

Minnesota Pays For Unconstitutional Game Law

The Entertainment Software Association wants Minnesotans to be outraged, and maybe they should be. After the state pursued an obviously unconstitutional video game law in 2006 that sought to penalize minors who purchase or rent M or AO rated video games, the ESA was forced to challenge the law. They were successful, and the state had to pony up $65,000 in legal fees to the ESA for their effort.

"Minnesota's citizens should be outraged at paying the bill for this flawed plan. Minnesota's public officials ignored legal precedent and instead pursued a political agenda that ultimately cost taxpayers money," said Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of the ESA, which represents U.S. computer and video game publishers. "Courts across the United States have ruled consistently that video games are entitled to the same First Amendment protections as other forms of art, such as music and literature."

BBFC Disappointed By Publisher Delay Concerns

Recently some UK game publishers - notably EA - expressed concern that proposed changes to the ratings system that would require the British Board of Film Classification to review all games 12+ and up would cause delays in getting titles into the hands of consumers. BBFC Director David Cooke finds their lack of faith disturbing, and says so in a lengthy statement released today.

“We are disappointed and concerned about attempts by one or two video games publishers to pre-empt, through recent press statements, the forthcoming public consultation on video games classification. Their statements are misleading in several respects:

The BBFC’s current average turnaround time for games classifications is eight calendar days. In terms of international comparisons, this is notably quick. There is no reason why the increased role for the BBFC envisaged by Dr Byron should lead to delays.

Cooke goes on to explain that the BBFC is fast, efficient, and more than capable of dealing with games both online and off in a timely fashion. Hit the jump for the full statement without delay.

EA: UK Game Ratings Changes Spell Delays

The last thing gamers in the UK need is additional delays to the games that can already take months to make the jump from Japan and North America, but that's just what they'll get under the new system under consideration by the British government. Suggested in the Byron review, the new system would require games that would normally receive a 12+ PEGI rating be subjected to review by the British Board of Film Classification. Speaking to Eurogamer, EA UK head honcho Keith Ramsdale worries that the new system wouldn't be in the gamers' best interest.

"The government's proposed changes to the existing age rating systems will create further delays in getting hit games to the UK," he said. "An extra and unnecessary layer of administration beyond a single system slows the process, and that delay will get passed on to the players themselves."

If you ask me the UK just needs to have the whole shebang handled by PEGI and be done with it, but that isn't a very British way of doing things. Why they have to go and make things so complicated?

New ratings system could delay UK releases [Eurogamer]

Lies, Damn Lies and PTC Press Releases

The Parent Television Council is apparently making the rounds among newspaper reporters trying to drum up a little attention at the cost of Grand Theft Auto IV and the truth.

Arizona Daily Star reporter Phil Villarreal received one of their emails this morning, asking if he'd be interesting in talking about GTA IV: Liberty City, a game with content "too deplorable and disgusting to describe in detail" which "appeal to the lowest common denominator by actually rewarding criminal activity and offering the gamer everything from a chance to drive drunk to the opportunity to solicit services from a prostitute."

Villarreal, a gamer himself, decided to take the PTC up on their offer and was not-so surprised to find that the council's copy of GTA IV seems to be slightly different from the one the rest of the world received. Among other additions to the PTC's copy of the game: You get points for drunk driving.

Hit up the full interview for all of the new PTC features.

You Get Points for Driving Drunk in this Game [Arizona Star]

ECA: Special Interest Groups "Don't Have A Leg To Stand On"

Nonprofit advocacy group The Entertainment Consumers' Association is hailing the results of a recent Federal Trade Commission study that showed 80 percent retailer compliance with the ESRB's ratings system, a continual year-over-year increase that puts games ahead of other media in self-regulating mature content.

ECA President Hal Halpin called the results, which improved significantly over 2007, "an extraordinary accomplishment," praising retailers' commitment to keep M-rated games out of kids' 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," Halpin said.

About 20 percent of underage teens were able to buy Mature-rated games during a recent nationwide undercover shopper survey conducted by the FTC, down more than half from last year, the FTC reported today.

The survey, which also looked at R-rated movies, DVDs and "Parental Advisory"-labeled music, found that video games had the best enforcement rate.

ESRB Levels Thorough Pre-Emptive Strike

As excited as the gaming community is about the impending release of GTA IV, sadly, a new Grand Theft Auto title tends to mean bracing ourselves for a new round of anti-gaming attacks from the uninformed. Fortunately, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board is more than prepared to head 'em off at the pass, joining with the Parent-Teacher Association for a series of parental education initiatives kicked off with a webcast tonight.

ESRB president Patricia Vance, PTA president Jan Harpe Domini, and Andrew Bub of GamerDad.com spared nothing in an accessible, deliberate explanation not only of the ratings system, but in clarifying for parents how to open a dialogue on media exposure with their kids.

ESRB And PTA Launch National Parental Awareness Campaign

Hey kids! Better get a parent's permission before purchasing Capcom's Bionic Commando: Rearmed for Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation 3! Various ratings organizations have made the call, and the game has gotten mature ratings all around, due to violence and such. The announcement is being made via the Bionic Commando website in the form of a cute little faux in-game communique, which makes references to other Capcom titles like Lost Planet and Dead Rising. Just remember kids, if your parents give you any grief, the game is all about making Hitler's head explode, and if they don't support that sort of thing they are goose-stepping, tiny-mustache wearing Nazi supporters.

Bionic Commando Comminucator [Official Site via Videogaming247]

You Call These E-Rated Games? No!

Professor Layton and the Curious Village
"...A 10 year-old boy is traveling the countryside with an old professor he has no relation to? By all the ESRB's guidelines this is an E-Rated game with no objectionable content..."

ESRB Releases Ratings Search Widget

The Entertainment Software Rating Board teamed up with Clearspring Technologies to create this neat little widget that lets you search for video game ratings by entering a game's name.

The widget hunts through the more than 14,000 games indexed at the ESRB and spits out the answer without ever leaving the site.

"Our single most important message to consumers, particularly to parents, is that they should always check a game's ESRB rating when considering a purchase or rental for their children," said ESRB president Patricia Vance. "Parents are hungry for this information, and research shows that three-quarters of parents regularly check ESRB ratings when making purchase or rental decisions about which games to bring home. Our ratings search widget makes checking the rating that much more convenient. We're very excited to be offering this widget with the help of Clearspring."

The widget can even be customized by visiting the ESRB site so you can try and match it to your site's colors. You can even enter color codes in Hex to match stranger site colors like, say, deep red and baby poo green.

Australian Game Ratings Behind The Times

"It seems inconsistent that in Australia, adults are allowed to view 'adult only' films which have been classified R18+ by the Classification Board, but not computer games with an equivalent high level content," he said in a statement. "With the increasing convergence between films and games, the different approach to classification principles is difficult to sustain. At the moment, Australia is out of step with the rest of the developed world on this issue."

Confessions Of An ESRB Employee

What's More Violent: Mario or THE BIBLE?

Bruce Everiss, an industry vet who's worked at companies like Imagine and Codemasters, feels that games are being judged for content in a much harsher manner than other media. So he picked a comparison text at what we're sure was completely random (the Bible) and scanned it for adult content.

There is a handy website that allows you to search the bible for content. Using this we find that the King James version has "harlot" in it 48 times, "sodomite" 5 times, "fornicator" 5 times, "smite" 133 times, "kill" 208 times and "maim" 7 times. This is shocking, you have to wonder what any right minded parent is doing exposing their children to this stuff.

The Bible Vs video games [BruceOnGames via GamePolitics]

UK Gets Serious About Video Game Ratings

The front page of the Guardian has an interesting story on the tightening up of the UK's video game rating system. According to the Guardian, only games that display "sex or "gross" violence to humans or animals" currently have any kind of age limit attached to them, leaving a large portion of games unrated that contain "weapons, martial arts and extreme combat." To make sure that large portion doesn't go unchecked, Ministers are proposing a completely overhauled ratings system.

An investigation of violence in video games and the current rating system and its effectiveness is being carried out as we speak, the results of which will guide British Ministers in their reshaping of the guidelines. Some of the findings are expected to effect not only the access of adult games by children but also access to adult content on the web as well. A bill is also expected to come forth that would create a separate body of people to appeal the decisions of the BBFC and its ratings of DVDs and games. While this could potentially be a good thing, it also has a lot of room to be detrimental to sales and ratings of certain games and movies depending on the how conservative this "body" turns out to be. Once the UK system is overhauled, it will be interesting to see how long it takes before the rest of Europe follows suit.

Ministers plan clampdown on 'unsuitable' video games

Nielsen Ratings Show WoW Tops PC Gaming, PS2 Tops Consoles

The Nielsen Company has issued its "Top Ten U.S. Lists for 2007," revealing its findings for top performers in television, movies, the internet, DVDs, music, books and, of course, video games. It should come as little surprise that the number one PC game played in the United States this year was Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Its users averaged over 17 hours of gameplay per week, according to Nielsen, which may help, in part, explain the consumption of $17.6 billion worth of carbonated soft drinks, a factoid also contained in the report.

The rest of the PC gaming genre's top performers are below, with video game console usage stats after the jump.

Top 10 PC Game Titles in the U.S.
Apr-Nov 2007

1. World of Warcraft
2. The Sims
3. RuneScape
4. Halo: Combat Evolved
4. Halo 2
6. Counter-Strike
7. The Sims 2
8. Madden NFL 07
9. Grand Theft Auto
10. Counter-Strike: Source