With summer vacation on its way later this month in most parts of the country and with children looking for things to do when they aren't outside, it makes perfect sense that June has been declared Entertainment Ratings & Labeling Awareness Month by DiMA, EMA, NARM, and NATO (no, not THAT NATO).

The Digital Media Association (DiMA), Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA), National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM), and National Association of Theatre Owners are calling on theatre owners and retailers of movies, music, and video games to highlight and emphasize the motion picture and video game ratings and music labeling systems to their customers.

The Australian Government’s Attorney-General’s Department has posted an online survey to gauge public opinion on the recently released draft guidelines for the R18+ ratings classification released earlier this week.

The survey contains four possible answers showing either support or opposition to the new game classification and a comment section where participants can leave lengthy comments. The survey does not seem to be exclusive to citizens of Australia (though it does require users to leave their name, state, territory and email).

Here are the four choices users can select:

While we have no idea where most Australian politicians stand on yesterday's draft proposal for an R18+ video game classification, the new adult rating is getting some unexpected support from the Catholic Church. According to a GameSpot report, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said that they welcomed yesterday's proposed guidelines for adult rating for video games. Unfortunately not all religious groups agree: the Australian Christian Lobby describe the changes as "frightening."

In a press statement, the Conference, which carries the influence of the Catholic Church in Australia, said that it would support the rating because it could not achieve its preference of having adult material banned. A tepid approval for sure, but the church admits that it is better to have such content under a proper ratings system that parents can use.

The Australian Federal Government has released draft guidelines for a new video game classification system which adds an R18+ rating and keeps the MA15+ rating. Some politicians in Australia, like South Australian Attorney General John Rau, have said that in order to add an R18+ rating to the system the MA15+ rating would need to be eliminated from the ratings system.

The new 16-page draft proposal (found here in PDF format) released by home minister Brendan O'Connor simply adds an R18+ classification and defines the descriptors for sex, drug and alcohol use, and violence in detail.

One Australian MP who supported the idea of a national R18+ ratings category for video games has stepped down, to the chagrin of gamers across the country. Tasmanian Attorney-General David Bartlett announced today that he was resigning, saying he had lost his passion for the job.

"[F]or the past two to three weeks … I have had to question whether or not I still have the passion and commitment that is required," said Bartlett.

Bartlett also said he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Bartlett was of the most outspoken advocates of the R18+ rating for Australia. Or perhaps he simply listened to the general public, who generally support a ratings category meant for adults. Either way, he pushed hard for lawmakers in the country to join him in voting for it at most of the SCAG meetings where the topic came up. To introduce an R18+ video games rating in Australia, each state’s Attorney-General has to reach a consensus.

Robert Boyd, developer of the Xbox Live Indie Games Cthulhu Saves The World and Breath Of Death VII: The Beginning, says that he is delighted by Microsoft's decision to fix the ratings system for XBIG, but is disappointed that it won't turn back the clock a little. Boyd says that Microsoft's failure to remove suspicious votes from the system is “highly disappointing” and that affected games will never recover from being "completely buried" by illegal voting.

"Microsoft doing nothing to fix the fake ratings that have already been given is highly disappointing," Boyd tells Edge. He points to research done by XNA community developer Michael C. Neel, which shows that ratings abuse was far more widespread than anyone had thought.

Microsoft has made major changes to the ratings system for its Xbox Live Indie Games channel, after reports that users were manipulating individual game ratings last month. As of today only Xbox Live Gold subscribers can rate indie games on the service.

Robert Boyd of Zeboyd Games (Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World) alleged manipulation on the Facebook page for XBLIG game College Lacrosse: The Video Game. The developer of the game had urged fans to provide 5-star ratings to boost the game up the XBLIG charts. Boyd also claimed that those fans went further by providing minimum 1-star rating to competing XBLIG titles to help improve the Lacrosse games' positions. That would explain why Boyd would be talking about it.

A post on the XNA Game Studio Team blog this week detailed the changes:

Starting today, North American video game ratings system ESRB revealed that it will start using a computer-based program to determine ratings on some games. According to a New York Times report, the ESRB has developed a computer program designed to take developer input to create a rating for their games. This will be used first with downloadable games on platforms such as Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and WiiWare titles.

Game developers will fill out an online questionnaire to find out what "violence, sexuality, profanity, drug use, gambling and bodily function" that might be considered questionable by players. The submissions would then be reviewed by the new ESRB software and a rating would be issued. A submitted game won't be reviewed by an actual human until after release.

Barbara Biggins, CEO of the children's advocacy group the Australian Council on Children and the Media, is ratcheting up the rhetoric against gamers in the fight to keep Australia from getting an adult ratings classification. She has accused Australian gamers of "using propaganda" in the very public debate over changing the ratings system.

In an article that appeared on The Drum Unleashed, Biggins alleges that the rhetoric used by those that want an expanded ratings system has changed recently, and now downplays the negative side effects:

"Over the past year ... the pro-R18+ lobby has argued that having such a category would provide better protection for children," she wrote. "The push became propaganda."

Her argument is that allowing games into the country that have adult content in them won't keep them out of the hands of children, who will find a way to get them.

After game developers and the gaming community at large complained loudly about Metacritic's plan to "rate" developers, the review aggregation site has decided to pull the feature. Metacritic says that the "career scores" are "a work in progress." Fans don't like it for a number of reasons - not the least of which is the fact that it attempts to put a numerical score on an actual person.

"As part of our relaunch of Metacritic in August of last year, one of our goals was to make the site much more dynamic and to allow our users to discover new products by exploring other titles by the creative teams behind the movies, games, TV shows, and albums our users enjoy," wrote Metacritic games editor Marc Doyle.

The Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab is hosting a series of video talks that explores everything from ratings systems in Europe and North America to game censorship. The first in the series, available now, is called "Blood, Sex, and Politics in Video Games: How Censorship Is Done (or Not): "'Die!' Censoring Game Violence." Below is the tease from the GAMBIT Game Lab site:

Responding to public comments from Australian Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor about the desire to have a consensus about an R18+ game classification at July's SCAG meeting, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has come out swinging. The ACL issued a statement saying that the ban on games that require a classification higher than the current rating of R15 should continue as it is.

First, let's look at what Brendan O'Connor said to ABC Australia:

According to a Eurogamer report (thanks beemoh) Duke Nukem Forever and Shadows of the Damned have both been rated 18 by the UK's BBFC. The game that no one ever expected to be finished has descriptors for "strong violence, sex, nudity, and language & drug references" - among a laundry list of naughty things. Shinji Mikami and Suda51's game Shadows of the Damned has descriptors for "very strong bloody gore and very strong language." Both games remain intact as in other regions.

Shadows of the Damned, published by Ea in the United States, is set for release on June 1 on Xbox 360 and PS3, according to GameStop. Duke Nukem Forever is published by 2K Games and is set for a release in early May for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.

At least both games will see the light of day in the UK.

No Mortal Kombat for you, Australia. An appeal by publisher Warner Bros. Interactive to overturn an earlier decision by Australia's Classification Review Board to deny classification has also been denied. That means that the forthcoming Mortal Kombat reboot has been permanently refused classification in Australia, banning the title from official retail release. In an official statement, Warner Bros. Interactive praised fans in Australia and expressed disappointment in the classification board's decision:

"We're obviously extremely disappointed that the refused classification decision has been upheld by the Classification Review Board. We want to thank the thousands of Mortal Kombat fans in Australia and around the world who have voiced their support during the appeal process."

Mortal Kombat's  reboot will still arrive next month in other territories so you can expect fans that want the game bad enough will simply import it from those regions.

This actual gameplay footage from We Dare, the sassy, saucy, and apparently badly marketed game from Ubisoft shows that the game is probably rated appropriately in Europe. In other words, harmless fun and not necessarily harmless "adult" fun. So if that's the case and the game is appropriate, then the blame for all the fervor over the game's content has to go to Ubisoft’s marketing department, who released a commercial making the game look like a way to get another couple to have a four-way...

Anyway, check out the video and see why We Dare is about as sexually charged as an episode of the Golden Girls.. Thanks to Andrew Eisen for the video link.

The Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) rating board, the organization responsible for rating games in Europe, defended its decision to rate We Dare for 12 year olds and above (PEGI 12) this week, even as Ubisoft takes extra precautionary measures to warn parents about the game's content. It's interesting because it undercuts PEGI's stance.

A statement by the ratings board (found on Cubed3D) defends the decision to rate it for such a young age group, stating that "it contains mild swearing, minor assault on a human-like character and words/activities that amount to obvious sexual innuendo, explicit sexual descriptions or images and sexual posturing."

According to Gameplanet.co.nz Mortal Kombat will be available in New Zealand. Australians are no doubt envious of the fact that NZ has a ratings system that goes beyond the 15+ age limit. The reboot of the Mortal Kombat series received a rating of R18: Graphic Violence in New Zealand, ensuring that the game will be released in the region in April.

Mortal Kombat will be available on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on the April 21. The game releases here in the United States on April 19, 2011.

So far, Australia is the only country to refuse classification of the game (to my knowledge). We do not know why other than the tired mantra of "protect the children" being at play on some level. If you want to protect children MP's of Australia, give the games rating system the proper adult classification it needs: R18+, please.

In light of a rather racy commercial and confirmation from Ubisoft that We Dare is intended for mature audiences, many are still a bit surprised to learn that PEGI rated the game 12.

Cubed3.com sought comment from the rating board who explained:

According to a report on Kotaku Australia Mortal Kombat has been refused classification in Australia. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment issued the following statement to the media:

Australian Federal Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor wants to introduce the R18+ for games by mid-2011 and said today that he plans to push state and territory attorneys-general to accept the proposed guidelines and finally approve the adult classification. Or at least, that's what he is telling GameSpot.au.

O'Connor told GameSpot AU that he wants this issue resolved by July. A vote could have been possible in March if New South Wales Attorney-General John Hatzistergos did not have to skip the March SCAG meeting in March due to reelection activities.

Australians hoping that the R18+ issue would be resolved at a March Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG) meeting had their hopes dashed once again as the government pushes the issue back to deal with local elections. New South Wales attorney-general John Hatzistergos confirmed that, because he would not be able to attend the March SCAG meeting, any decision or further discussion on R18+ would have to wait until after his re-election campaign. In order to approve the R18+ rating, all state and territory attorneys-general have to agree to it.

Australians expected to see progress on this issue at the March 4 SCAG meeting in Wellington, New Zealand.

Review aggregation site Metacritic has named Take-Two the best publisher of 2010, citing its own review score data for games released within the year. According to the site, Take-Two's overall average score for the year was 77.1 percent. Red Dead Redemption was the company's highest rated game, with an average review score of 95 percent based on 96 reviews. Take-Two's lowest scoring game was Major League Baseball 2K10 for Wii, which had an average review score of 52 percent. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, named the publisher's "best original title," had an average overall review score of 83 percent. 

Nintendo came in a close second with an average overall review score of 76.1 percent. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the highest rated game of the year overall, with an average score of 97 percent. Capcom came in third at 74.5 percent, followed by Microsoft at 73.4, and EA at 72.6. Activision Blizzard missed the top five with 69.3 percent. 

Last week, IGN created a nifty little flow chart detailing the ESRB’s rating process.  GP veterans are no doubt familiar with the process but newer readers may look at the chart and think, “Wait a minute, why doesn’t the ESRB play all the games it rates?”

ESRB media relations guy, Eliot Mizrachi explained to IGN:

Sometimes developers can get carried away with the use of adult words in "mature" rated games (see Mafia II), but Guerrilla Games game director Mathijs de Jonge says that its latest game, Killzone 3, has just the right amount of colorful language.

Speaking to Edge Magazine, de Jonge talks about the merits of strong language in video games - where appropriate - and feels that Killzone 3 hits its swearing sweet spot.

"In Killzone 2 we ended up with too much of it," de Jonge told Edge. "The thing about swearing is that it's highly effective when it's done right, and in Killzone 3 I think there's some swearing but if feels a lot more impactful."

"It's at the right times," adds de Jonge. "In total, I think there's seven 'f*** yous' and one 'mother***er'. I think that's fine."

The level of swearing in Killzone 3 seems minor - almost non-existent, in fact - when compared to Mafia II.

An ESRB ratings entry for BioWare's Dragon Age II reveals some of the "mature rated" sauciness you can expect within the game when it is released on March 8. According to the entry, the game will feature sexually charged dialogue, adult language, and a suggestive scene that "alludes to" an act of oral sex – among other things.

First the description of oral sex:

"In one cutscene, a woman kneels in front of a male character and appears to perform fellatio," says the ESRB entry. "There is no depiction of the sex act; the camera pans out to the rest of the room."

According to a roughly translated report in PCGames.De, Bavaria's Ministry of Social Affairs said that the PSP version of EA's Dead Space needs to be reexamined before it can be approved for release in the region (thanks Cheater87). The title must be tested for the sixth time by the USK, according to what EA told PC Games.

The objection seems to be with the multiplayer mode, which lets human players kill other human players. Germany is notorious for requiring developers and publishers to remove things like gameplay involving killing humans and blood before a game can be released in the region.

UKIE releases a PEGI app for iPhone and iOS devices that help shoppers - especially parents - in the UK get instant access to game related ratings data.

Similar to the app released by the ESRB, the PEGI app allows consumers to browse the database of all the video games that have received a PEGI rating (+16,000 games), get detailed information about the type of content each game contains, and read reviews (if one is available).

The app was created by PEGI S.A., the same group that manages the pan-European video games ratings system. The PEGI app is free to download now at iTunes. An Android version will be released soon. Eurogamer provides the reviews.

Last week Australia's attorneys-general failed to agree on an R18+ rating for video games, pushing the issue off to sometime "early next year," so that commissioners have more time to study the issue and craft solutions. Many in the country had hoped that the AG's would agree on a classification and get to work on implementing it. Sadly that did not happen.

Ron Curry, chief executive of the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association, issued a statement Friday afternoon saying the following:

While some were disappointed that an R18+ rating was not approved by the Australian government, one group was delighted by the outcome: the Australian Christian Lobby. Lyle Shelton, Chief of Staff of the group, seemed delighted that it failed, but not all Christians in the country agree with him or his group's views on the subject.

Anthony Caruana, a technology journalist and practicing Christian, takes offense with some of the things  Shelton has said about the R18+ rating and emphasized that his group doesn't represent all Christians in Australia.

In an article for ABC Caruana said that most video games are played by adults and that the stereotypical gamer is no longer just male and points out that women make up a large portion of the gamer demographic.

A statement from the Australian Christian Lobby (in an article entitled "ACL welcomes refusal of R18+ game classification" that appeared in the Australian Conservative) celebrates the defeat of the measure during the Standing Committee of Attorney Generals meeting last week. ACL’s managing director Jim Wallace was one of the panelists at the meeting speaking against the new rating. Below is some of what Wallace had to say about the meeting and the results:

"It was very clear to me that the great majority of AGs were in a state of bemusement that anyone could want to make or play many of these games and particularly those proposed for an R18+ rating," Wallace said. "It is clear that the meeting failed to get support for the R18 classification as a result."