Some politicians in Australia are taking issue with the official government rating given to Rockstar's controversial Bully, or, as the game is now known outside of the North American market, Canis Canem Edit.

The West Australian is reporting that New South Wales Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt is concerned about what she considers an overly-lenient rating given to Bully by Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). Ms Tebbutt urged parents to keep the game out of the hands of their children, and has requested that the country's Attorney General review the classification.

"I'm concerned that its message for violence is undermining what we're doing in schools to counteract bullying," she said. "I also want (the A.G.) to assure me that everything that needs to be taken into account has been taken into account in this classification process."
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Just got word from the ESRB:

Rockstar's upcoming Bully has been assigned a T (Teen 13+) rating with content descriptors for Crude Humor, Violence, Sexual Themes, Language and Use of Alcohol & Tobacco.

Currently, on the game's official site, Rockstar is displaying an image of Bully bearing the familiar T (13 & older) rating.

There has been much speculation that the game would receive an M (17 & older), but we can put that to rest now.

One of Net's most respected tech news blogs rises to the defense of Harvard researcher Kim Thompson (left). Good Morning Silicon Valley examined game critic Aaron Stanton's recent attack on Thompson's work and found it wanting.

"...there's some legitimate research being done on the potential effects of violent video games on young minds. But it's not surprising when isolated nuggets are seized upon and thrown into the grinder of the debate. Thus we see the work of Dr. Kimberly Thompson of the Harvard School of Public Health used as a punching bag one day and turned into a bit of snark about "ultra-violent Pac-Man" the next. But to its credit, Joystiq followed up with the good doctor, giving her space to explain some of the nuances of her work. And Thompson makes it clear that thinking seriously about this stuff is not child's play..."

The Herald-Review of Decatur, Illinois takes Gov. Rod Blagojevich to task for the half-million bucks in legal fees which the state must reimburse to the video game industry in the wake of its video game law being ruled unconstitutional:

"Remember the big media splash Gov. Rod Blagojevich made when he announced legislation that would ban the sale of violent and sexually oriented video games to young people? Well, the bill on that little media spotlight is beginning to come due.
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GP's bud John Callaham over at Firing Squad scores another solid interview, this time with Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), chair of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection. Stearns has also proposed legislation, the so-called "Truth in Video Game Rating Act."

Stearns expressed to Callaham his concerns about the ESRB's game rating process as well as how games are marketed. Here are some of the Congressman's points from the Firing Squad interview:

"The rating board, which is supported by the industry, does not review the game's entire content, instead relying on reviews that has led to numerous problems with inappropriate content being marketed to children."
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You can't get double-talk cheaper, anywhere.

Wal-mart, that bastion of low prices - and low wages - appears to be doing the corporate P.R. two-step in light of its decision to stop pre-order sales of Bully from its web store, Wal-mart.com. The move came shortly after controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson filed suit against the giant retailer and Bully publisher Take-Two Interactive in a Florida court on Wednesday.

The suit and the pulling of the game are not related, according to a Wal-mart P.R. spokesman, who claims that the mega-retailer coincidentally just happened to implement a policy not to pre-sell unrated (or RP for "rating pending") games on the same day that Thompson's Florida case was filed. GP's very limited review of Wal-mart's website this morning, however, quickly turned up several such games for sale, including Crackdown, Phantasy Star Universe, and Justice League Heroes.
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According to Reuters, Rockstar will announce today that its controversial title Bully will launch in October.

Although the Reuters story does not specify a date, it is reporting that the game's main character will be a 15-year-old boy named Jimmy Hopkins. Weapons in the game will include baseball bats, stink bombs and bags of marbles.

Bully will feature animated violence, but no blood or deaths, and has not yet been rated by the ESRB.
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The ESRB's new Commitment to Parents initiative is certainly creating some buzz.

The response to the program, designed to make parents more aware of the industry's video game rating system, has been mostly positive. In fact Commitment to Parents enjoyed the support of U.S. Senators Rick Santorum (R-PA), George Allen (R-VA) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) during its rollout earlier this month.

Staff Writer John Callaham over at Firing Squad recently scored an interview with ESRB President Patricia Vance to discuss Commitment to Parents. Here's what the ESRB head had to say:

"(Ratings) enforcement is certainly not a new concept... ESRB has worked closely with retailers for a number of years now to encourage and support their store policies regarding the sale of M-rated games, post in-store signage and train store associates about the ratings. However, the Commitment to Parents program takes those partnerships to a whole new level."

"Clearly Senators Santorum, Allen and Pryor understand the issues, and realize that initiatives such as those being undertaken... are truly where the greatest success is to be had... these Senators are wise enough to recognize that effective self-regulation is a better alternative to government involvement in these areas."
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While some in Congress seem to favor using the ESRB as a punching bag, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has officially stepped into the ring on the side of the video game industry ratings board.

Yesterday Shurtleff and ESRB President Patricia Vance launched a series of public service announcements (PSA's) which will air on Utah television stations in coming weeks. During the press conference, Vance spoke about the need to raise parental awareness of the industry's rating system.

"Just like movies and TV shows, video games are created for a diverse audience of all ages," she said. "That is why it is so important that parents remember to check the rating when purchasing games for their children. We are very proud to have the support of Attorney General Shurtleff in reaching out to Utah's parents and educating them about the ratings."
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Question: What do you get when you combine a politically-beleaguered ESRB with a desperate incumbent Senator and a rising star with presidential aspirations?

Answer: The ESRB Retail Council's "Commitment to Parents" Wednesday press conference, attended by Senators Rick Santorum (R-PA), George Allen (R-VA) and Mark Pryor (D-AR).

GP has scoured the ERC's bullet points, which appear worthy enough, but which could just as easily have been announced at the ESRB's office in New York City rather than in the rarified political air of Washington, D.C.

The Senator with election-year problems would be the arch-conservative Santorum. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Associated Press reported yesterday that Santorum trails Democratic challenger Bob Casey, Jr. by 18 points in the latest polls. Even more telling, the same poll showed Santorum receiving an anemic 38% approval rating among Pennsylvania voters.

So, yeah, the Santorum campaign is in a bad way. Showing up to promote the ERC surely can't hurt on the family values front. And having three U.S. Senators stand by its side is a political shot in the arm for the ESRB, which suffered a Congressional beat-down just last week in a committee hearing chaired by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL).

George Allen's career prospects are moving in the opposite direction from Santorum's. The former Virginia Governor and first-term Senator is said to have designs on filling Dubya's seat in 2008.

So what role do Senators Santorum, Allen and Pryor play in the ESRB's new initiative?

Window dressing, apparently. Allen has a blurb on his website about the event, but somehow managed to interpret what he was supporting as an announcement about "a new ratings system for video games."
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Need more on yesterday's contentious video game hearing before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection?

GamePolitics has more!

If you enjoy a pointed cross-examination, check out this GP-created MP3 of ESRB boss Patricia Vance's testimony, Harvard researcher Kim Thompson's testimony, and Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Cliff Stearns' questioning of Vance (22 megs, 24 minutes).

ESRB president Patricia Vance's written testimony is available here.

FTC Commissioner Lydia Parnes' written testimony is here.

A NIMF press release on Dr. David Walsh's testimony is available here.

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Penny Arcade leaked the news last week that it had signed on with the ESRB to develop a public service ad campaign.

Earlier today the ESRB confirmed the deal via press release, saying that the PSA blitz was developed especially for the gaming community and is made up of five print ads using original characters developed by the Penny Arcade team. The characters represent the various age levels covered by the ESRB ratings. The campaign will be rolled out over the course of the summer.

"ESRB tends to primarily focus on reaching out to parents about the importance of ratings, but this campaign is focused on gamers under the age of 21 who may not yet fully appreciate the benefits of the rating system," said the organization's president, Patricia Vance. "In order for the campaign to resonate with the gamer audience, we sought to have a little 'edge' to the creative; and let's face it, Penny Arcade comics give a whole new meaning to the term Comic Mischief!"

The press release notes that the Penny Arcade campaign will not take the place of the ESRB's more mainstream "OK to Play?" ads, which will continue to appear in non-game oriented publications.

Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade explained the team's approach to the ESRB deal, saying, "We took this project on to allow our signature style to communicate a really important message: the ESRB ratings matter to gamers of all ages. The characters we created are a reflection of who gamers are and what we love, so we're incredibly proud of the campaign."
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What just happened?

Did the ESRB really re-rate Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion from "Teen" to "Mature"?

Damn right they did. And, hey, let's talk about that. But... but... but... E3 starts tomorrow and we all want to know about the PS3 and the Wii and Halo 3 and Spore and The Sopranos and all the rest of the cacophony of press releases, deal announcements, game trailers, celebrity sightings and attendant hoopla that E3 generates.

Don't color me too X-Files here, but maybe the announcement was timed that way? A couple of business days worth of chatter (the re-rating news hit late on Wednesday) and then, like everything else game-related, the Oblivion story gets vaporized by the ever-expanding mushroom cloud of news that is E3.

If you think about it, the timing is quite interesting.

Oblivion hit retail on March 20th, a full six weeks before the re-rating. That means developer Bethesa and co-publisher Take-Two Interactive already realized the great majority of potential Oblivion sales before the re-rating took effect. (most titles sell heavily just after release and tail off quickly from there).

Nor would the logistics of the re-rating seem to cause major financial problems for Bethesda, since there was no recall and no removal of the game from retail shelves. You may remember that last year's Hot Coffee scandal cost Take-Two and developer Rockstar an estimated $25-30 million in recall, relabeling and re-mastering expenses.

But let's go back to E3 for a minute.

The industry has been taking steps to polish its image of late, including redefining how provocative booth babes can be. Mainstream media attention is likely to be higher than usual, since this is the first post-Hot Coffee E3. Having Oblivion's industry-imposed re-rating as a notch on the ESRB's belt certainly can't hurt when the talking heads begin to ask the inevitable tough questions about game content.

There's also the issue of the Xbox 360 version. The ESRB press release cites the now-infamous topless mod, applicable to the PC version only, as well as "more detailed depictions of blood and gore than were considered in the original rating of the game." Both versions - PC and Xbox 360 - were re-rated, but only the PC version will receive a new content description for "nudity." Both versions already carried descriptors for "blood and gore," and these will remain in effect.From here, it really smells like the topless mod was the key to the re-rating decision, not the blood and gore.

The ESRB's action has caused a low-key, but obvious dust-up between Bethesda and the ratings board. The wording of a Bethesda press release seems almost bewildered by the decision:

"Bethesda Softworks made what it believes was a full, accurate, and comprehensive submission on Oblivion to the ESRB months before the game's release. Bethesda used the ESRB's application forms and believes it adhered closely to their requirements. Nothing was hidden from the ratings agency."

ESRB boss Pat Vance fired back, putting the onus on Bethesda in an interview with GameDaily BIZ.

"Bethesda is fully aware that the content in question," Vance said, "both the more extreme depictions of blood and gore as well as the locked-out content, should have been disclosed to ESRB, which is part of why they have wisely chosen not to contest the rating change."

The various possible scenarios are all very confusing to GP, who admittedly confuses easily. One possibility is that everything is just as reported.

Another view, let's call it the grassy knoll theory, might be that this is as much about strategy, timing and public relations as it is about game content. After all, since Oblivion has pretty much run through the bulk of its retail sales and doesn't have to implement a recall, who really gets hurt here?

Only Bethesda's pride, it would seem.

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Whatever you think of the Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion ratings mess, give Bethesda Softworks points for standing tall.

In a press release posted on Bethesda's website, the Oblivion developer admits that it - and not co-publisher Take-Two Interactive - handled the ESRB rating application process. Take-Two, of course, took a major hit over last year's Hot Coffee scandal, and their involvement - however peripheral - with Oblivion has already caught the attention of some game industry critics.

Bethesda reports that it will "will promptly implement the ratings change that the ESRB has ordered for Oblivion."

The company does not plan a product recall or a change in Oblivion to meet T (teen) rating standards. Nor will Bethesda contest the ESRB's decision. The company will work with Take-Two (whose name is, curiously enough, completely absent from the press release, which refers to it only as "co-publisher") to re-sticker existing inventory. New copies will be printed with the M (mature) rating ordered by the ESRB.

As far as it role, Bethesda said it made what it believes was a "full, accurate, and comprehensive submission on Oblivion to the ESRB months before the game's release. Bethesda used the ESRB's application forms and believes it adhered closely to their requirements. Nothing was hidden from the ratings agency. No effort was made by Bethesda to lobby or influence the agency for any particular rating."

Bethesda goes on to say, "There is no nudity in Oblivion without a third party modification. In the PC version of the game only... some modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game. Bethesda didn't create a game with nudity and does not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion. There is no nude female character in a section of the game that can be 'unlocked.'"

The Oblivion ratings issue does not bode well for the mod community, as witnessed by Bethesda's comment that, "Bethesda can not control tampering with Oblivion by third parties. Bethesda is taking steps to ensure that modders can not continue to hack into Oblivion's art archives to create partially nude figures."

Depite the problems presented by this rather messy episode, Bethesda reaffirms its support for the ESRB as well as for Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion.

GP: ...and well they should. It's a fantastic game. As far as their comments about the mod community, it's a concern, but who can blame Bethesda?

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A Take-Two Interactive game re-rated by the ESRB for naughty content...

Sound familiar?

This time, however, the game is top-selling RPG Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, which was released last month by publisher Take-Two Interactive. The ESRB announced today that it was revising its original rating for Oblivion from "T" (13 and older) to "M" (17 and older). The sudden change was based on what the game industry's content rating body describes as "more detailed depictions of blood and gore than were considered in the original rating, as well as the presence of a locked-out art file or 'skin' that, if accessed through a third party modification to the PC version of the game, allows the user to play with topless versions of female characters."

A patch to disable access to the topless characters will be made available shortly. The Xbox 360 version is not affected.

"Parents across the country depend on ESRB ratings every day to make sensible choices about the games they bring home for their families," said Patricia Vance in an ESRB press release. "Rating changes are extraordinarily rare, but if ever one does occur, ESRB recognizes that parents must be made aware of the change as quickly as possible so they are certain to have the most current and accurate information."

The ESRB also alerted parents to the increasing availability of mods for PC titles.

UPDATES: Although the ESRB press release doesn't mention it, GameSpot is reporting that the ratings change will pertain to the Xbox 360 version as well.

Meanwhile, retailers were quick to react to the change. IEMA president Hal Halpin issued a statement saying, "The pace at which the IEMA retailers reacted to the change in the ESRB rating for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion today stands as testament to the effectiveness and commitment to the industry's self-regulatory efforts... When we were notified of the game's ratings change today, we alerted our member company representatives who communicated to their stores the change in the game's rating..."

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He may the one thing that the ESA, ESRB and Jack Thompson all agree on: they don't like him.

Despite that - or perhaps because of it - Dr. David Walsh, 60, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF), is celebrating the organization's 10-year anniversary.

An Associated Press report terms Walsh "low-key" for a crusader. GP would tend to agree, and add that gamers may not often agree with Walsh, but he always treats them with respect.

"We're not, in any way, any kind of a censorship organization," Walsh told the AP. "We're not anti-media. We believe very strongly in the importance of the First Amendment."

"The real impact of media violence is, it starts to shape how it is that we treat one another - from 'have a nice day' to 'make my day,' Walsh quipped. "The 15-year-old brain is not the same as a 30-year-old brain, and so things are not going to affect it the same. And that's true of alcohol and it's also true of violent video games."

Walsh cites last summer's Hot Coffee scandal as NIMF's biggest moment, and it's true that Walsh's National Parental Alert moved Hot Coffee from a web-only story (broken by GamePolitics) to a mainstream sensation via his contacts with U.S. Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT).

"We were the nonprofit that exposed the fact that there was explicit pornography in the best-selling video game on the market. And the producer of that game denied for a month that it was there," recalled Walsh.

In demand as a speaker, Walsh made some 200 speeches last year. He also was a guest on a December GamePolitics podcast.

Things are certainly not in warm-and-fuzzy territory between Walsh and the video game industry just now. As reported on GamePolitics, NIMF's 2005 Annual Video Game Report Card was harshly critical of the industry, including awarding a failing grade to the ESRB. Walsh plans to call a national conference in September to address video game ratings.

The ESRB, in turn, was equally scathing in its reaction to the Video Game Report Card, saying, "NIMF's real agenda... is to destroy the commercial viability of games it deems objectionable. Unlike NIMF, ESRB's job is to be a neutral rater, not a censor... The ESRB rejects this year's MediaWise Report Card just as we did last year..."

To be honest, whatever one thinks of the NIMF-ESRB controversy, there were some other glaring problems with the 2005 report card, including its ridiculous assertion of a cannibalism trend in games and its disputed claim that the National PTA concurred with NIMF's findings.

Walsh also made big news when - in a story broken right here on GamePolitics - he publicly distanced himself and his organization from vitriolic anti-game activist Jack Thompson.

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The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) is dropping the fight over Mark Ecko's Getting Up.

Getting Up was originally rated "MA15+", but after a review by the Classification Review Board, had it's rating stripped, which effectively bans the game from stores shelves in Australia. The review, featured on GamePolitics, followed concerns by the Local Government Association of Queensland that the game would inspire criminal activity, a concern designer Mark Ecko called "erroneous".

The IEAA originally planned to appeal the decision, citing "strong legal grounds to challenge the decision."

IEAA CEO Chris Hanlon issued a press release explaining why they dropped the case:

"Our decision to not appeal this matter in the Federal Court was made on the basis of the costs involved in establishing these facts in a court of law... The IEAA also believes it is more constructive to work with the Attorney General's Department to improve the classification process."

CM: Hopefully they are encouraging the government to make Australia's "Universal Ratings System" actually universal, and allow R18+ ratings for video games...

-Reporting from Saskatchewan, GP Correspondent Colin "Jabrwock" McInnes

What do you get when ESRB boss Patricia Vance decides the game rating body's Internet presence needs a redo? Extreme Makeover: Website Edition...

"Oh gawd, my eyes!!!" screamed fellow GP Correspondent Jabrwock when I strapped him to a chair, Clockwork Orange style, and forced his gaze upon the ESRB's recent website redux. Before the new page is finisher loading, the reader's eyeballs are assaulted by a full-screen flash of retina-searing yellow. This unfortunate choice of color permeates every inch of the redesign.

Aesthetics aside, the new ESRB layout is a breeze to navigate and most of the early bugs have been worked out since its relaunch late last week. The only problem (aside from the ghastly hue) is the site's search engine, which has taken a bit of step backwards. The original presented all search parameters on one page in a user-friendly format. Now, however, one must select search criteria one at a time from three separate drop-down menus. It's a bit cumbersome and not as powerful, but to the ESRB's credit, the content menu is organized very nicely.
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