A few details regarding Britain’s Digital Economy Bill were touched on this morning as part of the Queen’s Speech to Parliament, in which the monarch outlines the coming legislative agenda.

Among the forthcoming actions will be a mandatory age rating on all videogames aimed at children ages 12 and above, reports the Guardian. The Bill calls for the adoption of the Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) system as the method of classifying games in the UK, replacing the current practice of using both PEGI and British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) ratings.

The Digital Economy Bill would also tackle piracy, proposing a tough policy much like France’s three-strike Hadopi Law. Those caught committing piracy will receive a warning letter, followed by a second, more stern letter that will caution the user that “technical measures” could be implemented in order to stop them from stealing files.

Failing the second warning, a pirate would be placed on a “serious infringers list” which would allow ISPs to disconnect them from the Internet. Those about to be disconnected will have 20 days to appeal their case before an independent body. They will also be able to appeal the case if they lose, again within 20 days. The Guardian has a flow chart that illustrates the full process (PDF).

First Secretary Lord Mandelson does not expect widespread disconnections as a result of the pending legislation:

Technical measures will be a last resort and I have no expectation of mass suspensions resulting. The British government's view is that taking people's work without due payment is wrong and that, as an economy based on creativity, we cannot sit back and do nothing as this happens.

The government hopes to cut piracy by 70% before April 2011.

The Open Rights Group believes the proposed disconnect laws to be illegal, adding that “Evidence cannot show who may have infringed copyright, only what connection was used.” They urge people to contact their MP to oppose “these draconian proposals.”

The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) applauded the outline of the Bill, stating:

ELSPA believes the proposed UK adoption of the Pan-European Games Information (PEGI) classification system to be an important step in ensuring child safety when gaming. The video games industry offers its full support to the Government in this.

On the other side of the fence, while noting that the Digital Britain report was announced with “grand ambition,” the Guardian calls the Digital Economy Bill “more plumbing than poetry, in many places little more than a series of disconnected tweaks to existing legislation.”

The British Board of Film Classification has bestowed an 18 (Adult) rating upon Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City, the bundle which features both The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and The Damned.

In doing so, their report contains a few spoilers from both games, which we won’t detail here. The BBFC noted that “at least four uses of very strong language that crop up in some of the cut scenes” bounced the rating up from 15 to 18. “Strong sex and violence and hard drug use” also contributed to the higher mark.

There is also sex scenes, which are “quite strong, but always masked and the characters concerned are invariably fully clothed (no nudity).” Portrayals of cocaine, in addition to references to drug trafficking, are also spread liberally throughout the game.

Additionally:

“There are blood spurts as people are shot and stabbed etc. and pools of blood form on the ground. However, there is never any discernible injury detail and it is not possible to inflict post-mortem injuries, although there is considerable ragdolling as dead bodies are shot.”

Click through to see the whole BBFC report, and don’t worry, sections that contain spoilers must be expanded to be read.

|Via EuroGamer|
 

Activision’s latest entry in the Call of Duty series has received an 18 rating from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).

MCVUK notes that all the previous entries in the series were rated wither BBFC 15 or PEGI 16+. The only statement made in the BBFC’s rating memo was that the game “contains strong bloody violence.”

In related news, it appears the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 will no longer be the beneficiary of dedicated servers. A EuroGamer story states that developer Infinity Ward will roll out a new proprietary service, called IWNet, which will focus on matchmaking.

This news served to irritate PC-based fans of the series, who immediately started an online petition demanding dedicated servers. At the time of this post, there were more than 96,000 signatures on the petition.

Update:  A 13-page thread on the Infinity Ward forums details the cancellation of many pre-orders for the game by those upset over the lack of dedicated server option for the PC version of Modern Warfare 2.

A sampling of comments:

I also cancelled my preorder. I've got better things to spend my money on than that. A great Singleplayer? that's no comfort to me. -.-

I work at EB games in a shopping center here in Australia. We got hit with an onslaught today, 193 total preoders for Modern warfare 2 on PC, today alone we lost 78!

Four of my co-workers went to GameStop at lunch yesterday to cancel their pre-orders. They said the guy working told them that there had been a slow but steady stream of people coming in to cancel pre-orders throughout the morning.

And, just to be fair:

I walked into my local game store and... ...went ahead and paid for MW2 in full after putting $5 down on it a couple of months ago. You people that are canceling are going to miss out on a great game.

Update 2: Infinity Ward developer Robert Bowling has taken to his blog in an attempt to further explain/clarify some aspects of the online experience PC users will face.


Image via Cheezburger.com

The British Board of Film Classification, which last week lost the battle for control of U.K. video game ratings to industry-favored rival PEGI, once investigated whether Grand Theft Auto IV contained a genuine recipe for manufacturing crystal meth.

The Times reports that the discovery prompted "crisis talks" with developer Rockstar. In testimony last year before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons, BBFC head David Cooke discussed his organization's review of GTA IV:

We did examine [GTA IV] extremely thoroughly and we are the only regulator I know of who looked, for instance, at the particular issue where... there was a concern about whether you were being given instructional information about how to make the drug crystal meth.

 

We actually took independent advice on the point and eventually were able to satisfy ourselves that some of the crucial ingredients and techniques were missing so it was not a genuine cause for concern.

UPDATE: College News (leave it to those crazy college kids) explains where the so-called crystal meth recipe can be found in GTA IV:

The suspected recipe for crystal meth can be discovered in the video game as a posting on the fictional Web site Craplist --a parody of the popular real life Web site Craigslist.

Dr. Tanya Byron has thrown her support behind the British Government's recent decision to award the U.K.'s game rating chores to PEGI over the BBFC.

MCVUK reports that Byron, who in 2008 completed a review of the role of video games and the Internet in the lives of British children, said:

Video games were the big issue in my review, specifically their classification system. I didn't have time to outline a new classification system entirely, but I did outline principles for how it should look.

My suggestions then went to consultation and the Government have this week made their decision, which is an enhanced PEGI system. My recommendations have been upheld and it's a really great decision which I thoroughly support.

After more than a year of consideration, the British Government has selected the Pan-European Game Information system, better known as PEGI, will handle video game content rating chores in the U.K.

The announcement was made a short time ago and is contained in Lord Stephen Carter's Digital Britain report.

The U.K. video game industry is sure to be pleased with the news. British game publishers association ELSPA lobbied hard for PEGI during the 15 months since Dr. Tanya Byron's review recommended that there be a single content rating system for the U.K. ELSPA boss Mike Rawlinson was ebullient over the announcement:

The Government has made absolutely the right decision for child safety. By choosing PEGI as the single classification system in the UK, British children will now get the best possible protection when playing videogames either on a console or on the internet.

Parents can be assured that they will have access to clear, uniform ratings on games and an accurate understanding of game content.

On the other hand - as in the United States where the ESRB handles ratings - some will question whether the video game industry can be relied up to effectively self-regulate.

For its part, the BBFC issued a statement reflecting its disappointment but vowing to support the Government's decision:

The BBFC has always supported PEGI and wished it well, but it continues to believe that it satisfies these requirements better than PEGI. However, it will cooperate fully in the detailed work needed to give effect to the Government's decision. And it must be independent in substance as well as appearance, reaching its decisions and providing information on the basis of its own detailed assessments.

Among the video game community the BBFC is best known for the controversial nationwide ban it imposed on Manhunt 2 in 2007. That edict was later overturned by Britain's High Court.

Via: TechRadar

The British Government's long-awaited decision as to which agency will take control of video game content rating chores in the U.K. should come this morning.

gamesindustry.biz reports that the release of the Digital Britain report by Communications Minister Lord Stephen Carter (left) will follow a statement in the House of Commons. From gi.biz:

The report, which is expected to cover a number of videogames industry issues, including the decision on game ratings, will also cover off a number of high profile issues, such as the UK's broadband infrastructure and the future of analogue radio.

Who will be in charge of video game ratings in the U.K.?

That long-awaited answer will come next Tuesday, according to MCVUK. As GamePolitics readers know, a pair of entities have been competing for the assignment ever since Dr. Tanya Byron completed her review of the effects of video games and the Internet on British youth in early 2008.

The U.K. game industry has voiced a strong preference for the Pan-European Game Information rating system, better known as PEGI. Some in government, however, are believed to favor the British Board of Film Classification. The BBFC is best known to gamers for banning Rockstar's bloody Manhunt 2 in 2007. That decision was later overruled by the British High Court.

MCVUK reports that industry group ELSPA planned to do some last-ditch lobbying on PEGI's behalf new Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw. ELSPA boss Michael Rawlinson told MCV:

We are encouraged that Ben’s previous work as a BBC news correspondent will mean he has first-hand knowledge, experience and understanding of the problems facing the creative industries sector.

We look forward to meeting with Ben soon and discussing how our industry can continue to work with the Government to ensure games retain their place as a world leader in the sector.

We will, of course, also be explaining the significance and importance of PEGI becoming the single classification system for games in the UK. We wish him well in the post.

Thanks to: GamePolitics correspondent Mark "Beemoh" Kelly...

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has weighed in on Resident Evil 5 and finds no evidence of racism, reports Eurogamer.

Complaints of racial insensitivity in RE5 have cropped up periodically ever since a trailer for the game was released at E3 2007. Most recently, Eurogamer's report on a pre-release look at RE5 code renewed concerns about possible racism in the game.

But the BBFC's Sue Clark dismissed the racial angle in a scene fretted about by Eurogamer:

It's the bit where you see "a white blonde woman being dragged off, screaming, by black men", as our preview put it... [BBFC's] Clark responded, "In the version [of the scene] submitted to the BBFC there is only one man pulling the blonde woman in from the balcony, and I can't say the skimpiness of her dress impressed itself on me. The single man is not black either.

"As the whole game is set in Africa it is hardly surprising that some of the characters are black, just like the fact that some of the characters in an earlier version were Spanish as the game was set in Spain," Clark continued.

"We do take racism very seriously, but in this case there is no issue around racism."

Odd that both Eurogamer and Kikizo reported it was black men doing the dragging, but presumably we were given an earlier version of the code than the one submitted to the BBFC.

The battle for control over U.K. game ratings rages on...

The quasi-governmental British Board of Film Classification has released survey results which indicate that 74% of UK parents want video games to be rated by an independent (i.e., non-industry) body.

Like, say, the BBFC...

The content rating body, which has been locked in a bitter struggle for control of UK game ratings dominance with the PEGI system favored by the industry, reports that its figures come from a poll conducted on the British YouGov portal. Among its other conclusions:

• 74% of parents are concerned about the content of some video games.
• 79% of parents think video games may affect the behaviour of some children.
• 74% of parents believe video games should be regulated by an independent regulator.
• 77% of parents believe video game ratings should reflect the concerns of UK parents.
• 82% of parents believe it would help them if video games used the same ratings as films and DVDs.

BBFC head David Cooke (left) commented on the survey data:

This poll clearly shows parents support a regulatory system for games that is independent of the industry and UK based, reflecting UK sensibilities and sensitivities... The BBFC has been classifying games for over 20 years and our decisions reflect the views of the public.  Our classification systems and symbols are known and trusted by the public and in a converging media world they want to know what their children are playing as well as watching.

Meanwhile, website techradar takes the BBFC to task, dismissing its survey as "hokum," The site criticizes the sample size (1329 parents) and suggests that leading questions were employed.

For its part, UK game publishers' trade group ELSPA promised to throw money at the problem:

Our first concern is to protect British children... The independently administered PEGI system is the right solution for child safety.

Naturally we will support the PEGI system with a multi million pound campaign that helps parents understand that the right system for real protection of their children is PEGI.

Yesterday GamePolitics broke the news that the British Board of Film Classification had issued an 18 rating to Madworld, Sega's upcoming Wii gore-fest.

In doing so, the BBFC ignored a demand from Mediawatch-UK that Madworld be banned in the British market.

Spong is now reporting that John Beyer, head of the media watchdog group, has expressed disappointment over the BBFC's decision to approve Madworld for sale:

I'm disappointed but not surprised. I think my view is pretty well known. It's what I expected.

It's hardly a surprise, but the British Board of Film Classification has officially rated Sega's upcoming Madworld with an 18 certificate.

The BBFC noted that Madworld "contains very strong, stylised, bloody violence."

No edits to the game were required. As GamePolitcs reported last August, Sega was said to be working closely with the BBFC to avoid a ban such as was imposed on Rockstar's controversial Manhunt 2 in 2007.

A British family values group, Mediawatch-UK, has called for a ban on the bloody Wii title.

Madworld is scheduled to launch on March 31st in the U.K. Here in the United States, Madworld is set for March 10th release. The ESRB has not yet issued a rating.

UPDATE: Edge is reporting that Madworld has also been cleared for sale in Australia.

No surprise here.

The British Board of Film Classification has assigned an 18 rating to the upcoming Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.

No edits to the game were required, although the BBFC issued warnings that GTA Chinatown Wars "contains very strong language and drug references".

The game is scheduled for a March 20th release in the UK.

UPDATE: GameSpot notes that the 18 rating assigned to GTA Chinatown Wars is the first ever assigned to a DS game by the BBFC. The game's rating for the North American market is not yet listed on the website of the ESRB.

The House of Commons had a lengthy and entertaining debate on video game issues yesterday. Also under discussion was the issue of Internet safety for children. Both topics, of course, were the focus of the well-known Byron Review.

MPs, including Labour Party game critic Keith Vaz argued about game ratings, game violence and whether the government does enough to support the British game biz.

The session had to be gaveled to order at a couple of points and Vaz made reference to a "secret tea" attended by Conservative MP Edward Vaizey and game industry execs. And, as if the ongoing turf war between PEGI and BBFC for U.K. ratings dominance wasn't complex enough, yesterday's debate also featured the light-hearted suggestion that British road safety icon the Green Cross Man (left) somehow be tied into the game rating system.

In this report, we've omitted the Internet bits to focus on the video game debate. Here's our abridged transcript:

John Whittingdale (Conservative): ...If one looks for empirical, hard, factual evidence that viewing a particular video or playing a video game has led someone to go out and commit a crime such as a rape or an act of violence, there is very little. Our view was therefore... that we should act on the probability of risk. Where there is a probable risk that someone would be influenced by exposure to such material, that is sufficient cause for intervention...

Tanya Byron did a great deal of work on that. Her other conclusion, which was shared strongly by the Committee, was that we cannot completely insulate children from material that might pose a risk. Part of educating children involves teaching them how to deal with risks. If we insulate them to the extent that they never encounter risks, they will not know how to deal with them...

Providers such as Microsoft told us about the parental controls that they have installed into products such as the Xbox... We were impressed by the commitment that almost every major industry body, including internet service providers, social networking sites and hardware manufacturers, has shown regarding the protection of young people, but there is no commonality...

I want to talk about video games in the final part of my remarks. I know that Keith Vaz... has several concerns about this issue, so he has arrived [late] at just the right moment.

Part of the problem with video games... is that there is no hard evidence to prove that playing a game will lead someone to go out and commit a crime or physical attack. Nevertheless, we agree that there is a probability that it could occur, and there is anecdotal evidence to support that view. The Video Recordings Act 1984 provided that games should be classified, that it is necessary to restrict certain games to people over a certain age... and that there would be games that should be banned entirely. That system has been generally successful since then, although there is often controversy about individual games...

Edward Vaizey (Conservative): I invite my hon. Friend, in the tone of his remarks, to make the point that when we talk about harmful video games and films, we are talking about a small minority. Does he agree that it is incumbent on hon. Members to remind the House as often as possible, when they talk about video games, that we have a most successful video games industry in this country, which employs thousands of people?

John Whittingdale (Conservative): My hon. Friend is entirely right. The video games industry is increasingly important and generates more money than the film industry. It is something that we are very good at. We are a creative nation, and many of the most successful games were developed here. We strongly support the games industry's efforts to ensure that it remains strong in this country and is not poached by other countries such as Canada, which is attempting to attract it there.

Keith Vaz (Labour): ...The fact remains that some of those games, even though they are a minority, are very violent. The hon. Gentleman and I have both commented on the video internet game "Kaboom" in which people replicate the activities of a suicide bomber. It cannot be right that the makers of those games should choose such storylines to provide entertainment, especially on the internet, where our children and under-18s can access them more easily than if they were going into a shop to buy them, as with non-internet games?

John Whittingdale (Conservative): This is a very difficult area and "Kaboom", which has been around for a little while, is an interesting example. It is a remarkably crude, cartoon-type game and is not in the least realistic, as many games now are. It is undoubtedly tasteless and might be offensive to a large number of people. I suspect that it is probably distressing to anyone who has suffered a bereavement as the result of a suicide bombing. Does that mean that it should be banned? I am not convinced that it should, because it is so crude, and other games pose greater concerns.

Edward Vaizey (Conservative): May I make a point to my hon. Friend? In his response to Keith Vaz, he has implied that "Kaboom" is somehow a legitimate video game that breaches the boundaries of taste, but it is not. It was created by an individual in his bedroom. To say that we should ban "Kaboom" is, with the greatest respect to my hon. Friend, slightly missing the point."Kaboom" is not subject to any legal constraints. It cannot be submitted to a regulator to be classified, because it is made by an individual, effectively illegally, outside the mainstream... It is not at all part of the mainstream video games industry. (more after the jump)

mediawatch-UK can dish out criticism, but apparently has trouble taking it.

The self-appointed media watchdog group complains that it was flooded with e-mails from angry gamers in August after the head of the organization called for a ban on Sega's upcoming Madworld.

mediawatch-UK's autumn newsletter contains a whinge about the e-mails, which started when the organization's director, John Beyer (left), told the Daily Mail that he hoped the British Board of Film Classification would deny Madworld a rating, effectively banning the game in the U.K.

Within hours of these remarks being published a rain of hostile emails from gamers poured into our office telling us to "shut the f*** up", suggesting that we have "got our knickers in a twist", demanding, as though we were on trial for an heinous crime, to know what right we had to impose our "narrow minded bigotry" on them and stopping them playing an "adult" game of their choice.

Others, of a more sober character, asked reasonably why we should be so concerned about games when there was so much violence in films and on television!  We were also accused us of being "cowards" for not responding properly to belligerent strictures and one ‘emailer' observed glibly that "violent acts are not a symptom of video games and films, but rather the human condition".  Another said: "If you don't like violent content, don't view or use it"...

Feature articles, grossly exaggerating the significance of our comments, were written in computer game magazines exonerating the multimillion pound games industry and headlines were achieved on Google News UK and dismissive remarks made in The Guardian newspaper... 

mediawatch-UK's conclusion from all of this?

It is evident from this that the battle for standards has rather shifted away from television towards games and the internet. 

GP: Make up your mind, mediawatch-UK. If you want to be a player in this debate, learn to deal with people who not only have an opposing view, but will be directly affected by the censorship for which you are lobbying. Moreover, your whining about negative media coverage is silly. Why shouldn't those in the media who disagree with your advocacy of censorship speak out?

There's an old saying about the heat and the kitchen that seems applicable in this case.

Via: Mediasnoops

ELSPA, the trade group which lobbies for game publishers in the U.K., plans to introduce a color-coded rating scheme.

The move comes in the midst of ELSPA's bitter struggle with the British Board of Film Classification for control of game content ratings in the U.K.

According to Gamasutra, ELSPA's new system is based on something that's familiar to everyone - traffic lights.

The new color codes would be layered on to the existing PEGI rating categories. Games with 16 and 18 ratings would get a red light, a yellow for 12s and green for games suitable for young children.

Of course, with three colors and five ratings, not all of the kinks have been worked out.

Gamasutra writes:

The new rating system is in response to the UK government's upcoming consultation into video game ratings on November 20 and to child psychologist Dr. Tanya Byron's recommendations in her recently published report on the effects of video games on children.

Not surprisingly, BBFC spokeswoman Sue Clark criticized the ELSPA plan:

There is a system in place already which people know and understand and which in fact uses the traffic light colours, and it's called the BBFC system.

In the United States, secret shopper surveys conducted by the Federal Trade Commission offer a pretty clear idea of how well the video game industry is doing at enforcing ESRB ratings.

But, how often are mature games sold to minors in the U.K.?

No one really knows.

Unlike in the United States, in the UK, BBFC ratings are backed by force of law. But, according to Spong, the British government doesn’t collect data concerning inappropriate game sales to minors.  When questioned about the number of retailers selling video games or DVDs to underage customers over the years, U.K. Labour government minister Vernon Coaker said:

Information on the number of recorded offences of retailers selling video games or DVDs to underage customers is not collected centrally. This is a summary offence and is not included in the police recorded crime statistics.

While Coaker was able to obtain data on “the number of police cautions issued, the number of fines imposed and the average fine,” these figures include both DVD and video game sales.
 
-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics correspondent Andrew Eisen.

 

Unless you've been hibernating for the last few months, it would have been difficult to miss the simmering feud between the BBFC and PEGI.

Both are in contention for the job of rating video games in the U.K., where PEGI enjoys the support of ELSPA, the U.K. game publishing lobby, while the BBFC appears to be favored by the government.

In a guest column for Edge Online, BBFC head David Cooke plays down the rivalry, which has gotten fairly nasty at times:

I have been reading recently that there’s a spat between the BBFC and ESLPA or the BBFC and PEGI. I don’t recognize this so-called spat. I have great respect for ELSPA and for PEGI and for the games industry...

Cooke also discussed the U.K.'s bifurcated game rating system, which currently uses both PEGI and the BBFC:

The conclusion that [Tonya Byron] reached was that we should still have a system in which both the BBFC and PEGI were involved for the UK but the BBFC should have a rather bigger role covering everything from age 12 and older.

 

In parallel, the House of Commons Select Committee on culture media and sports looked at the same kinds of questions as Tanya Byron, and they took a lot of evidence from many experts, including ELSPA.  They reached a similar conclusion to Byron.

Cooke also points out the difference between BBFC's mandate and that of ELSPA:

BBFC isn’t a lobbying organization, like ELSPA. It’s a statutory regulator. Our position is we’ll do what the government wants us to do... The key difference between us and PEGI is that we classify in accordance with guidelines that the British public has been consulted about. PEGI doesn’t do that and can’t really because it involves 27 different countries.

Sega, publisher of the upcoming MadWorld, is working closely with the ESRB on the bloody game's content, according to a report on MTV Multiplayer.

Sega's goal, of course, is to avoid a sales-killing Adults Only rating. It's more or less a given that black-and-white (and red) MadWorld will be tagged with at least an M rating in the United States.

Of the cooperation, MTV Multiplayer's Patrick Klepek writes:

Sega is working closely with the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to ensure the game receives just an M rating, they told me. The ESRB receives new builds on a regular basis and Sega notes their feedback. Sega wants them to feel “part of the process” of developing “MadWorld” and isn’t looking to surprise them...

 

But don’t let the ESRB’s involvement make you nervous; “MadWorld” is plenty violent right now. It looks like “Sin City” was bathed in a bucket of blood.

As GamePolitics reported in August, Sega is similarly working with the BBFC on smoothing over MadWorld's path to a successful U.K. release. It's unclear, however, whether MadWorld will see release in other violence-sensitive markets, including Japan, Germany and Australia.

Although MadWorld is not scheduled for release until March, the game has already been the subject of at least one call for a ban.

ELSPA, which represents U.K. game publishers, has vowed to fight on in its bid to have content rating chores assigned to PEGI rather than the British Board of Film Classification, gamesindustry.biz reports.

The PEGI-BBFC debate has become rather a long-running sideshow in the U.K., where government officials seem to prefer the BBFC, the industry wants PEGI and no one seems in the mood to compromise. ELSPA boss Paul Jackson spoke to gi.biz of his organization's determination:

Nobody is saying for a second that if government brings in a regulation for a videogames act of parliament that our members won't fight it. Of course they will. At the end of the day we're a very law-abiding industry and we'll fight our corner right the way through. If there's a legislative process we'll fight that as well.

 

I think [government officials are] listening now. I have a real sense that the arguments we're making are so well-founded in fact that they're impossible to not listen to...

 

Fifteen years ago when we set up our own age ratings without anybody asking us to, we did it entirely off our own backs to make sure there was child protection. I don't think there is the slightest doubt that this industry isn't serious, coherent and of one mind of where we're going.