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ESRB Tells Browser Game To Quit Bragging That It Was Rated AO

The ESRB has asked the Chinese maker of a browser-based game to quit advertising it as rated Adults Only, reports GamesIndustry.biz, largely because the game has never been rated by the ESRB.


US Video Game Retailers Do A Good Job Of Not Selling Adult Games To Kids

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission in the US ran an undercover shopper sting, aimed at testing various retailers’ compliance with age ratings for media products. Kids aged 13-16, without the supervision of an adult, were asked to try buyin unrated DVDs, explicit albums and M-rated video games.


New US Bill Wants To Turn Game Labels, Sale Restrictions Into Law

US Democratic congressman Jim Matheson has introduced a bill known as “H.R. 287″, which is the latest attempt to introduce tighter controls on the way video games are sold in the United States.


Comic Books’ Disastrous Self-Censorship Offers Lessons For Games Publishers Too

“Censoring violent comic books did not reduce juvenile delinquency or increase literacy,” reasons the International Game Developers Association. “It decimated the production of one of the few kinds of literature that at-risk youths read for pleasure.”


ESRB Opens No-Cost Ratings Service For Digitally Distributed Games

Downloadable games sold through the three console makers’ online services will be rated by what the Entertainment Software Ratings Board is calling a “streamlined, no-cost service,” in a statement released today by the ESRB. The new “Digital Rating Service” gives developers and publishers access to a “brief but detailed online questionnaire” to define a product’s covers downloadable games on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo’s eShop and Wii Shop Channel, and Windows 8.


You Can’t Say That In A Video Game—Why, Someone Might Think You’ve Been Drinking

Even for an NBA 2K13 soundtrack curated by Jay-Z himself, the butchery of Puff Daddy’s “Victory,” was to be expected. That track contains four N-words, eight F-words and nine S-words, and this is a game played by 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds.


The ESRB Knows Dead Or Alive Too Well

Japanese fighting game Dead or Alive features a bevy of curvy ladies punching and kicking each other in the face. For years now, the DoA‘s have been talking up two things: Fighting game mechanics and boob physics.


Borderlands 2′s Official Rating Is Outstanding

Back at E3 I was dismayed to learn that, thanks to prudes overseas, Borderlands 2‘s darkly humorous death animations would have to be toned down from the original’s, which included eyeball-exploding electrocutions.


Free-To-Play Football Title Loses Its NFL Licence

News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming:

QuickHit Football had a solid debut year in 2009 and won an NFL licence a year later. Then it lost its director of design, a veteran of the beloved NFL 2K5, and was bought up by Majesco around E3 last year. Now it’s losing the NFL licence that seems to be the holy grail of sports gaming.


There Was Too Much Blood On This Game’s Cover

The upcoming Risen 2: Dark Waters has been asked by the ESRB to change its front cover, because there was simply too much of the ol’ claret splashed across the box art.


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