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PSP minis developer surprised by cost of ESRB ratings [Update]
Here's one reason why PSP minis are more expensive than their iPhone counterparts: the ESRB. Sony doesn't enforce any control over the pricing of minis, but they do mandate getting approval from the ESRB ratings board. That, apparently, has been a significant hidden cost some developers didn't expect. "You have to invest some money into dev kits and into getting ratings for your game. The costs of ratings such us ESRB is significantly more then we had realized," Fieldrunners developer Sergei Gourski told Gamasutra. According to a posting at GameDev.net, the cost of getting an approval is $2,500. [Update: The ESRB responded to our story, correcting the price. "ESRB has a reduced fee of $800 for games that have development costs under $250,000, which would likely apply to virtually all PSP Minis."] Content developed for the iPhone doesn't need to go through the ratings board, an oversight which, surprisingly, has yet to attract a media call-to-arms. Should the ESRB succeed in courting Apple as the defacto ratings system for the iPhone, the high cost of approval should curtail one of the largest problems facing the iPhone store today: having too much content, a sentiment shared by Minigore developer Kimmo Vihola. Vihola noted that "[Apple's] process is starting to crack from the seams," and pointed out that Sony's turnaround time on minis is much faster than Apple's store. Sony takes three to five days for approval, while Apple varies "from a couple of days to up to six weeks."
Australian attorney general refuses to support 18+ game rating
Australia has a long, sordid history when it comes to banning the sale of mature games. Titles which exceed the limits of the Office of Film and Literature Classification's MA15+ rating are refused classification, preventing them from being sold in the Land Down Under. Following such a ban on Valve's Left 4 Dead 2, the introduction of an R18+ rating has been feverishly debated by the nation's officials -- however, a South Australian attorney general named Michael Atkinson is holding up the proceedings by vehemently opposing the adoption of the mature rating. Atkinson told Australian news outlet News.com.au that he's uncomfortable with the interactive nature of the medium. "People are participating and 'acting-out' violence and criminal behaviour when they are playing a video game," he explained, later adding, "it certainly does restrict choice to a small degree, but that is the price of keeping this material from children and vulnerable adults. In my view, the small sacrifice is worth it." Rarely can governmental actions be attributed to just one person, but the OFLC's refusal to rate mature titles is a direct result of Atkinson's opposition. Remember, this is the same guy who tried to censor a public document which canvassed Australians on the issue in an attempt to better advise the nation's ratings officials. He censored the study on censorship. Consider our mind truly boggled. [Via GamesIndustry]
Website rates best and worst cellphones by radiation output levels -- how does yours stack up?
You're surely aware that your cellphone bleeds radiation into your face the whole time you're on the phone with your mom, best friend or lover, right? Yes, it's a fact we try not to think about most of the time, but now there's a tool out there on the internets for the more reality-facing folks among us. The Environmental Working Group's launched a website dedicated to rating cellphones on their radiation output alone. Ranking highly (meaning they put out the lowest levels of radiation) are the Motorola RAZR V8, and AT&T's Samsung Impression. In fact, it seems that Samsung is cranking out the healthiest phones these days! Phones with poor showings includes T-Mobile's myTouch 3G and the Blackberry Curve 8830. So hit the read link and tell us, how does your phone rate?[Via bookofjoe]
ESRB rates Oddworld, Blood Omen and others for PSN
The ESRB has proven to be the unacknowledged PR firm for the announcement of Sony's PSOne Classics -- today, the ratings board released its biggest onslaught of upcoming PSN titles to date, including such gems as: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain Cool Boarders 3 International Track & Field Oddworld: Abe's Exodus Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee Pandemonium! Syphon Filter 2 Um Jammer Lammy Some of these ratings are new -- however, Um Jammer Lammy has already been released in Japan, and Blood Omen and Pandemonium! were actually given ratings last March before mysteriously disappearing from the ESRB site. Hopefully, their resurfacing is indicative of their swift arrival -- we're jonesing for some old fashioned, Silicon Knights-branded Vampiolence.[Via CVG]
FCC considering universal game ratings, ESA unimpressed
According to a Bloomberg report, the FCC will soon begin looking into the development of a universal rating system that would span television, games and mobile phone content. Unsurprisingly, the move comes in response to a Congressional call to see whether inappropriate content is harming children and if the current laws are adequate to protect them. The Entertainment Software Association, according to the report, has previously stated that the FCC has no jurisdiction over video games. In a statement given to GameSpot, ESA senior vice president for communications and industry affairs Rich Taylor stated that the current ESRB rating system is "considered by parents, family advocates, the Federal Trade Commission, and elected officials as the gold standard in providing caregivers with the information they need to make the right choices for their families." He added further that a new universal system would "confuse consumers, violate the Constitution's first amendment, and are a solution in search of a problem." We might also add that television, video games and mobile phone content are -- with few exceptions -- different forms of media. After all, it doesn't really make sense to use the same scale to judge both Batman: Arkham Asylum and your "Yakety Sax" ringtone. Or does it? Source - Bloomberg Source - GameSpot
PSP finally joining the Tetris Club
The PlayStation Portable has been on the market in some form or another for nearly five years now -- the fact that there isn't a Tetris game available on the platform is mind-boggling. Seriously, our grandmother has Tetris on her portable defibrillator. How is it not on our half-decade-old handheld gaming device?Electronic Arts apparently asked themselves this question, then immediately sprung into action to port the popular puzzler to PSP. At least, that seems to be the case, as evidenced by a recent Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (that name is too beautiful to truncate!) listing for an EA-developed PSP version of Tetris. We've contacted EA to see if Lumines' tyrannical reign over the handheld's puzzle genre really is drawing to a close.[Via Siliconera]
2v2s will still be in Patch 3.2, with exceptions
One of the more controversial parts of the Patch 3.2 PTR was the decision to remove the 2v2 bracket from serious arena play. In the 3.2 patch notes thus far it was said that "The newest season of Arena gear can only be purchased if you meet the requirements with your 3 or 5-player team rating. Rating requirements from 2-player teams can still be used to purchase the previous season of gear."That effectively killed off the 2v2 bracket.However today, Blizzard has done an about face on the issue. Sort of. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. They're listening to feedback and this patch is in testing. The fact that they're willing to make such a major change based on feedback they've received is a great thing.So as of today, your 2v2 rating will count towards your ability to purchase gear, etc... It will mean something. However the following exceptions apply: The current season's weapons will not be available for purchase with your 2v2 rating The current season's shoulders will not be available for purchase with your 2v2 rating Your 2v2 rating will not count towards the Gladiator title/rewards The full announcement after the break.
Publishers face big fines for lying to PEGI
The UK-based Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) is trying to show that the PEGI system -- which it supported in the great BBFC ousting of '09 -- is by no means weaker than the BBFC ratings that used to be oversee the region. Speaking with MCV, the group took the opportunity to warn publishers: "Abuse [the] new system and risk your future." Publishers may face fines of €500,000 ($696K) if they lie on the questionnaire, which allows PEGI and the Video Standards Council to determine an appropriate rating for their games.ELSPA's statement and teeth bearing are to ease concerns that PEGI won't be strong enough for the UK when it's implemented this holiday. ELSPA is essentially using a "see, we told them to play nice" tactic to save face, just in case the rating system it supported has an incident.
Apple pulls adult-content app from App Store, anyone surprised? Updated
And just like that, the iPhone App Store is once again safe for children, people at work, and those who enjoy the iron fist of an anonymous application reviewer gently controlling their hardware / software ecosystem. Yep, the "Hottest Girls" application has been yanked after just a few hours of availability, and it's no secret why: although the app was clearly labeled and approved under iPhone OS 3.0's app rating and parental control guidelines, naked-ladies-on-the-iPhone was quickly becoming too much news for Apple's squeaky-clean image to bear. Of course, that once again prompts us to remind everyone that this exact same content is easily accessible through any number of applications on the iPhone, like, say, Safari, and that the App Store's arbitrary and capricious review procedures are an incredible liability to an otherwise dominant platform, but honestly, no one's listening because they'd rather talk about boobs. Good work.Update: Interesting -- the dev's site now says that Hottest Girls has been "pulled" because their servers were "reaching their limits" and that the app will be back up soon, naughty pictures intact. We're guessing that means their image servers are cracking under the strain, but we'll see if this app or others like it make a reappearance anytime soon.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Potion tips for the uninitiated
Tanking Tips has a good (you guessed it) tip for potting up before a raid. They say that you can't use two potions in combat -- or can you? Any potion that relies on a proc to get used up (like an Indestructible Potion) can be downed early, then let the two minute cooldown on potions pass, and then you can drink another potion during the fight. Good deal.You could say that only the highest level raiders are going to be that worried about making sure that they have every single buff they can have, but even as a casual raider, I've found a lot of use in buffing as many ways as possible. Unlike the really epic guys (who use food, potions, and elixirs to beef up their already awesome gear), I tend to use potions and food to cover my weaknesses. For instance, I don't have as much +hit on my gear as I should have, so I specifically carry around hit food at all times, and I can see the results in my DPS. Even if you don't have the best gear, using the right potions and food buffs at the right times can help you drop bosses and win fights you normally wouldn't.Of course, that seems obvious to min-maxers, but many raiders with less experience don't realize how much of a difference the right pots and food can make on the raiding game. Lots of these buffs are cheap to buy (and even cheaper to farm if you've got the professions), so if you're raiding with regularity, definitely take a look at your stats and see if you can't throw a few temp buffs in the mix.
Blizzard gets an F at the Better Business Bureau
Looks like quite a few of those players who threatened to complain about Blizzard ended up doing so: over on the local Better Business Bureau website for Blizzard's region, our favorite game developer has earned an F. The BBB says that they've been given this rating "for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law's licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company's industry is known for its fraudulent business practices." Ouch. We don't really know that any of those things are true about Blizzard's way of doing business, but there are certainly many people on the forums every day who claim that the first two especially are major issues.Personally, I'm as big a critic of Blizzard as anyone when I think that there's something to complain about, but this rating hardly seems justified -- even if the BBB has received tens of thousands of complaints, that's still just a small portion of the playerbase. And despite the occasional downtime and various class nerfs, they hardly deserve an F rating, especially when a company that many people really do have issues with is riding along with an A rating. The BBB page also says that Blizzard's mass bannings have been a factor in many complaints -- there is probably no distinction made (or that can be made) in terms of complaints between people who have broken the ToS and people who have not.At any rate, even if the F rating is there, it obviously has very little effect on Blizzard's business -- how many of you ran to check the rating before you decided to subscribe to World of Warcraft? It seems like a few customers (who may or may not have broken the rules to begin with) have ruined Blizzard's reputation with the BBB, but it's fairly apparent that the BBB doesn't hold much sway among Blizzard's customers anyway.[Thanks ThisURLNotFound!]
Zarkmark tries to help you rate PuG players
There have been a number of sites lately, especially with the recent rise in endgame pickup groups, designed to help you find and examine potential PuGgers quickly. But none of them have made it quite as easy as Zarkmark, a site that allows you to quickly rate anybody you come across ingame by "zarking" (rating them up) or "marking" (rating them down) them. Then, they offer a quick search, which will not only give you a one-click link to the Armory, but an easy-to-read screen of how many people have rated the player you're looking at. Theoretically, ninjas will never find a group again.Of course, theory is theory, and right now, the Zarkmark directory is pretty empty, so odds are that for any given player you look up, you won't really get much feedback. But you never know -- if players jump in and populate the site (and it wouldn't help to have a little help from them -- instead of just an Armory link, it would be nice to see a player's gear and achievements right there on the page), we might eventually get a pretty accurate picture of what someone's reputation looks like.In fact, I'm a little surprised that Blizzard hasn't ever considered a reputation system in-game. Xbox Live carries one off pretty well -- even though I've never actually used it to consider who I do and don't play against, I have rated players and I know it's very easy to see scores if I wanted to. Given the rising numbers of VoA ninjas and PuGing in general, it might be worth it for them to give each player a socially-created rating in the LFG interface.
Fallen Earth rated M for Mature by ESRB
Fallen Earth is the upcoming post-apocalyptic massively multiplayer online game where players will soon be carving out a living in a world ravaged by viral and nuclear armageddon. Not that we really thought a game where fending off packs of mutated anarchist bikers out in the wasteland Mad Max-style was really going to be "family-oriented entertainment", but Fallen Earth LLC has now made it official. Circatrix from the Fallen Earth team writes, "Thought you all should be the first to know that we've received our rating from the ESRB board and we're classified as an M (Mature). You'll start to see this in our ads and videos moving forward." We're glad to hear that they're not toning down the game's themes simply to reach a younger audience, and Massively will be keeping an eye on Fallen Earth as it gets closer to launch.
compLexity hosts a machinima contest at NoobFlicks.com
compLexity Gaming has apparently just started up a new machinima site called Noobflicks.com, and to help promote it, they're hosting a machinima contest. To enter, all you have to do is put their little intro tag on your machinima, and upload it to their site before the end of April, and you'll be eligible to win some cash. The contest is called the $1000 World of Warcraft Movie Contest, but the most you can win is $150 -- they're doing three different contests in May, June, and July. It'll be a public vote for three winners selected from ten chosen by the highest rating on the site, the most views, and four more chosen by the site's staff.Whew. Sounds complicated, but there's also some Creative swag on the line (as well as even possibly a salaried machinima position), so as long as you post a good bit of machinima and make sure it tops views or ratings, you'll be good to go. We'll keep an eye out for the winners -- you may end up seeing them in our very own Moviewatch column, posted every day at noon.[ Thanks, Josh W! ]
Rumorang: BBFC rates 'Silent Hill'
We hope Konami may soon be ready to scare some truth out of earlier rumors of a Silent Hill remake for the Wii and PSP. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) recently posted a '15' rating for Silent Hill, with a listing that contains an interesting breakdown of scenes from the game with titles like "ANKH ROOM" and "CYBIL'S DEATH." Last month's rumor laid dev duties at the feet of Silent Hill: Origins creator Climax, though Konami has yet to make anything official. We're trying to reach either Konami or Climax for comment ... but the lines are cut, and there's an unsettling noise coming from behind the door.Of course, this could just as well be a PSN re-release. And yes, we'll take one of those too.[Via Kotaku]
Ubisoft 'least consistent,' Rockstar 'most consistent,' concludes study of Metacritic
Prepare yourself for some simple math and inflammatory statements. Gaming industry analysis site GameQuarry recently performed a breakdown of Metacritic ratings for titles released by major publishers to determine whose releases were of a consistently high quality. Assigning each release an A - F grade, then using a simple point value cipher (A = 2, B = 1, C = 0, D = -1, F = -2), it ranked each publisher by their final scores, providing some fairly interesting results.Rockstar Games took home top honors in this respect, with a grade score of 19 over its 23 releases. Telltale Games was a close runner-up with a score of 14 for its 23 titles. On the not-so-braggable end of the spectrum (chart posted after break), Ubisoft was listed as the "least consistent" publisher, with a final score of -148 over 237 games, with Activision hot on its heels with a score of -138 for its 227 games.Is this study the final word on which publishers are currently putting out the highest quality product? No, not exactly, as the list includes the entire portfolios of the publishers listed (at least for titles current enough to merit Metacritic ratings), so it doesn't do much to point out current publishing trends. Also, the more prolific publishers seemed to be somewhat penalized for their largeness -- Activision, who ranked second from the bottom, had more Grade A titles than anyone else on the list. However, it does provide a little food for thought -- and more than a little fuel for a few flamewars, we suspect.
Aus government confused on MMOG ratings requirements
After issuing some apparently definitive statements about the requirement for MMOGs to be classified for sale in Australia, the department responsible seems to have thrown up its collective hands in confusion and is apparently unable to determine whether MMOGs should or should not be classified. While the government held firm for a while that MMOGs were no different to other games for the purposes of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act of 1995, and that the position upheld by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) was incorrect, that message changed earlier this week, when the message wavered and the department then suggested that publishers and retailers (and us) should seek advice elsewhere.
Australian game rating board under fire for Lost and Damned classification
Typically, when Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification (the game rating board for the Land Down Under) is criticized for shoddy job performance, the attacks are coming from ... well, people like us. This is because the board's highest rating is MA15+, meaning games containing similar content to games rated Mature by the ESRB are often refused classification and sent back to the developer for content cuts.However, the OFLC has recently come under fire from its harshest critics, not due to its refusal to classify certain games, but rather, because of its rating for the recently released expansion to GTA IV, The Lost and Damned. These critics take issue with the fact that the expansion earned a rating from the OFLC without undergoing any content cuts, while GTA IV was forced to clean up its act before getting approved. These critics claim the similarities between the core game and expansion are evidence of major disparities in the Australian rating board. These critics might have a point -- the OFLC could be taking on a more lax approach to their classification of mature content titles. However, it's just as likely that Rockstar made content cuts to Lost and Damned before the first submission in order to avoid a refusal of classification -- and a costly resubmission. There's only one way to tell: Australian readers, we need you to boot up the game and, well, check for any and all wangs. We know, it's a lot to ask.
USK diagnoses PS3 with a severe case of Worms
The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (or USK, for those who are terrified of lengthy, foreign words), Germany's game rating organization, isn't traditionally known for bringing us the hottest scoops. However, a recent listing on their site perked up our ever-attentive ears -- they recently stamped a Freigegeben ab 6 Jahren gemäß § 14 JuSchG (restricted for those below the age of six) rating to a PS3 version of Worms. Given that the genre of said listing is "Arcade", we think it's safe to assume that they're referring to a PSN port of the XBLA title. This isn't a particularly surprising turn of events -- Worms has sold over half a million on the XBLA, and its done so over the course of about two years. However, Team 17, the game's developer, hasn't formally announced the PSNified title. Assuming the USK hasn't got its wires crossed, we should be hearing more about the port fairly soon.
Australia takes no action on unrated computer games
Since we broke the story on the unlawful sales of unrated MMOGs in Australia last week, there has been a fair bit of coverage, from Australian newspapers to assorted gaming blogs. Much of what you've probably read since the original story covered here and later in the Sydney Morning Herald haven't really had much in the way of new information, and like a game of Telephone, the tale has grown somewhat in the telling. So, here we're going to set it out for you, so you can get the information straight. Firstly, Australia has not suddenly banned MMOGs, nor has any law related to their classification or sale been abruptly changed. The regulations have been in place since at least 1995, and there's nothing new in that regard.
