FCC: All Your Ratings Are Belong To U.S.

It is no secret that the United States government likes to have its own control system in place for certain industries. For television it is the Federal Trade Commission, who keeps a tight rein on television, despite the occasional wardrobe malfunction or swear word that slips through the censors, and doles out fines to those who they think have gone to far.

But according to a Bloomberg report, the FCC wants to regulate other things including video games. FCC regulators are considering a single ratings system for television, video games, and wireless telephones - all under the guise of keeping questionable material out of the hands of children and helping parents.

According to the Bloomberg account, the FCC will begin an inquiry into such a system after an agency report is delivered Aug. 31 to Congress on the subject of media blocking and rating techniques. This report is the result of an inquiry by congress on whether children are harmed by inappropriate content, such as sex, violence and obscenity and whether or not the existing FCC system for TV would be a good fit for other content.

West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller seems to be at the center of this movement; the Democratic Senator who chairs the Commerce Committee, said at a hearing in late July of this year that his constituents are “horrified” by some programming. The report is the result of a law passed in 2007 mandating such a report to be researched and compiled.

Meanwhile mobile phone providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless, and software makers like Microsoft have come out strongly against such an idea. The ESA, which created the Entertainment Software Rating Board and the system which currently rates game by content, says that the FCC has no jurisdiction over games.

No doubt this will be a matter of contention for regulators and lawmakers, who see the connected world in which we now live in as highly regulate-able. But as the Internet has remained mostly regulation free, how will the government justify such regulations on content on private services? Will it attempt to regulate Microsoft’s Xbox Live service? Mobile phone networks? Social networks? Opponents see it as a slippery slope for a multitude of content platforms.

We’ll follow this story as it continues to develop.

Source: Bloomberg via Game | Life

GTA IV: The Lost and the Nude

Update: The ESRB responded to our request for clarification on a couple of issues related to the rating for The Lost and the Damned. When asked about whether or not the ratings board saw the full frontal male nudity in in the DLC prior to its release and if it thought it put the game beyond the threshold of a “Mature” rating, ESRB spokesperson Eliot Mizrachi offered the following response:

“This content was disclosed and found to be consistent with the game’s Mature rating; however, it did prompt the assignment of a content descriptor for ‘Nudity.’”

So, while some may find this content a bit of a surprise, at least the ESRB knew about it in advance and rated appropriately. I guess Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two have learned a lesson from all the nonsense surrounding “Hot Coffee.”

Original Story: Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and the Damned is out as we’ve already mentioned but people aren’t necessarily only talking about all the new characters, multiplayer modes, weapons and vehicles found in this DLC. No, they are also talking about a cutscene in the game that involves full frontal male nudity. That’s right, one of the characters in the game shows you what he has to offer unabashedly and without shame. The sad part is that the dude he’s having a conversation with doesn’t blink as this nude man chats him up.

 While this cutscene is amusing on so many levels, it also raises a few questions: did the ESRB see this clip when it rated the game “M” for “Mature” (it does list nudity in the game’s descriptor)? Does an extended look at a man’s junk constitute an “AO” rating and how will the mainstream media portray this clip once it is out there? We’ll let you judge for yourselves - follow this link - but keep in mind that it is intended for mature audiences and is appropriately age gated.

Both the ESRB and Rockstar Games are unavailable for comment at this early hour but we hope to get a responsefrom both later today.

Nielson: PS2 Most Played Online in 2008

Nielson released some interesting numbers for consoles played in 2008 (Jan. to Oct.) that reveal the PlayStation 2 as the most popular. Based on the percentage of of all console-gaming minutes played, the PS2 scored 30.2 percent, beating out the Xbox 360 (18.3 percent) and Wii (13.5 percent). Meanwhile, the last generation Xbox (9.1 percent) beat out the PS3 (7.7 percent) and GameCube (4.4 percent). “Other” (we assume mobile phones, PSP, DS and other devices) managed 16.9 percent.

Another report from Nielson also showed that World of Wacraft was the most popular PC game, raking in an impressive 671 minutes per week. Other popular games included Warcraft III (328 minutes), Half-Life 2 (288 minutes), Spore (268 minutes), and PopCap Games’ (133 minutes).

Commentary: The Timothy Plan Video Game Report

The Timothy Plan, an investment group that offers a family of funds that are morally upright, has released a report called “An Inside Look Into: Video Games”, sure to whip the faithful into a frenzy. We assume that this report is for members that ascribe to the questionable notion that any investment firm is capable of claiming moral high ground or finding companies that don’t engage in some questionable practices.

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ESRB Adds Summaries

The Entertainment Software Association, or ESA as it is fond of calling itself, announced that it is adding summaries to its ESRB video game ratings system. The idea behind these new summaries is to allow consumers to see “some of the thought process” behind the agency’s decision to rate a game a certain way.

Beginning today, new games will carry these summaries along with old games dating back to July of this year. The information will be available on the ESRB’s main Web site, on its mobile site and through its rating search widget.

More information is always a good thing, and this coupled with the ratings and descriptors is a smart step to help parents understand why a particular game is rated a certain way.

GTA Pulled from Thailand

Thailand game distributor New Era Interactive Media has halted the sale of Grand Theft Auto after a 54 year old Bangkok cab driver was stabbed to death by a young man in an attempt to “recreate scenes from the video game.”

The 18 year old male (whose name was not revealed in the Reuters report) said that he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game, according to chief police investigator Veeravit Pipattanasak. Police also said that the young man showed no signs of mental problems, but then went on to say that he was an “obsessive player of Grand Theft Auto.”

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Saw Game and the ESRB

Yesterday Brash Entertainment announced a few more details on the Saw game, based on the popular and oftentimes graphically violent movie franchise. Today I solicited some comments from the company about the game’’s nature and how it would reconcile the copious amounts of shock and gore with an ESRB rating system that is much more strict than the MPAA’’s movie ratings system.

Given the game’s stage of development, Brash wasn”t willing to say much, but a company rep gave us the following one-liner: Brash has an experienced team of producers that have years of experience in managing ESRB ratings.

Well, it ain”t much, but it”ll do. We”ll follow this game as it develops and let you know whether it’’s shaping up to be something unique, or if it’s another title taking a dip in potentially controversial waters.