A number of GamePolitics readers have suggested that Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, a 2001 first-person shooter, foreshadowed the current hostilities between Russia and Georgia.

The Bulletin serves up a detailed analysis:

Sometimes life imitates art, rather than the other way around, and the 2001 video game "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon" stands as a prime example. The game... accurately predicted the eruption of hostilities between an expansionist Russia and Georgia... the player takes on obstacles posed by South Ossetian rebels intent on creating a pretext for a Russian invasion.

 

The game's opening sequence features a Russian leadership intent on bringing the former Soviet republics back under its control. The narrator describes a Russian leader eerily similar to Vladimir Putin... As the game's intro opens, a lone 2008 flashes on the screen before the narrator reads the following words: "The year is 2008, and the world teeters on the brink of war. Radical ultranationalists have seized power in Moscow - their goal, the reestablishment of the old Soviet empire... The world holds its breath, and waits."

The Bulletin also points out that the National Review Online has noticed the eerie similarity between game and real-life events in McCain, Obama Respond to Scenario Out of First Level of 'Ghost Recon.
 

Yesterday GamePolitics reported on a planned protest march outside Ubisoft's San Francisco office.

Peace group Direct Action to Stop the War hoped to persuade Ubisoft to drop its support of the America's Army franchise, which the organization claims violates U.N. protocols against recruiting children into the military.

Two representatives of the group apparently scored some face time with Ubi's U.S. CEO Laurent Detoc. MTV Multiplayer has a response statement from Ubisoft:

Ubisoft is a leading publisher that strives to create the best entertainment experiences possible. Ubisoft worked with the U.S. Army to create America’s Army games for the Xbox and Xbox 360 in order to deliver a compelling experience for our customers. As we discussed with the Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) organization, our games are created to meet a diverse range of interests and not to express or endorse any political view. We respect DASW's First Amendment rights, and would hope they also respect and recognize ours.

Wired Game|Life's Chris Kohler has a lengthy (if slightly snarky) running commentary on the protest.

Does the America's Army game franchise violate United Nations protocols regarding military recruitment of children?

GameDaily reports on a group called Direct Action to Stop the War which says that it does and has taken Ubisoft, which publishes console versions of America's Arm, to task. On its website, the San Francisco-based Direct Action writes:

"America’s Army” ...is the property and brainchild of the US Army, which admit freely, and with pride, that it is one of their principal recruitment tools...
 
The military recruitment of children under the age of 17, however, is a clear violation of international law (the U.N. Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict). No attempt to recruit children 13-16 is allowed in the United States, pursuant to treaty.  In May, the [ACLU] published a report that found the armed services regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment.  The report highlighted the role of “America’s Army...”

 

The game is having an effect.  An informal study showed that 4 out of 100 new recruits in Ft. Benning, Georgia credit America’s Army as the primary factor in convincing them to join the military... 

Direct Action will be staging a protest today at noon near the San Francisco office of Ubisoft as well as two other local companies, GameLoft and Secret Level:

Ubisoft is not the only South Park neighbor engaged in the development of the game, Gameloft is working on the cell phone application and Secret Level was a designer on the 2005 Xbox version...  This August 6, on the 63rd Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, come out and ask the producers and developers of America’s Army to stop helping the Army recruit children. 

Last month Direct Action sent a letter of protest to Ubisoft CEO Laurent Detoc. The group claims that it has heard back from Detoc, who said:

Ubisoft has already planned not to make any further games of America's Army, that they may announce that decision in the future and he discouraged us from continuing our Hiroshima Day action... If Ubisoft's claims are true, why have they not publicly announced the end of the work for the Army's recruitment videogame, and why have they not ended their contract with Army, set to expire in 2015?

As expected, Electronic Arts has once again extended its deadline for Take-Two Interactive stockholders to tender their shares at $25.74. The new deadline is August 18th.

EA is apparently beginning to make some progress in its bid to acquire T2. The game publisher says that 11,741,339 shares have been tendered under the offer, nearly double the amount turned in when the previous deadline expired in late June. That is almost certainly related to T2's sagging share price of late. The stock has been trading below EA's offer price, making the deal more attractive to shareholders. TTWO closed on Friday at 25.04

This morning's EA press release links the extension to the Federal Trade Commission's review of potential anti-trust implications:

Extending the tender offer allows the FTC review process to continue. The proposed transaction is still subject to certain conditions that include regulatory approval. EA retains the right to terminate the offer if the conditions are not satisfied.

Coming up later today: Take-Two's obligatory press release explaining why, in its view, EA's offer is a bad deal for shareholders.

UPDATE: Wow, that didn't take long. In a press release which followed EA's by less than an hour, Take-Two, as expected, slams EA's offer. T2 chairman Strauss Zelnick alludes to "multiple" suitors, but does not name them (Activision? Ubisoft?):

We are fully engaged in a formal process to evaluate strategic alternatives that have the potential to deliver greater value than EA's inadequate offer. As part of this process, we continue to engage in meaningful discussions with multiple parties, a number of whom have been conducting due diligence.

UPDATE: In a lively interview wiith VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi, EA CEO John Riccitiello touches on the T2 deal:

Having clever verbal sword play about Take-Two doesn’t really matter. I’m not really playing for a headline in the New York Times...

 

I don’t think we’ve played a poker hand. We have expressed our interest. We have made a public bid. We are in the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust review. All of the information has been disclosed. We’re playing it to the way we’ve said we would play it. There have basically been three moves and there have 6,000 articles on it. It’s sort of amusing. I feel a little bit like those strobe light things where it looks like a guy is moving a lot. The flash goes off but the body doesn’t move. Every time a flash goes off, somebody writes a story on it. To be honest with you, the last time there was news was a couple of months ago.

Video game execs apparently hated this week's E3 .

They shouldn't feel bad. Everyone else hated it too.

I'll have more to say about that, but for now, digest these quotes from today's San Francisco Chronicle:

John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts:

I hate E3 like this. Either we need to go back to the old E3, or we'll have to have our own private events.

Laurent Detoc, president of Ubisoft North America:

E3 this year is terrible. The world used to come to E3. Now it's like a pipe-fitters show in the basement.

A quartet of leading publishers have come out in favor of the Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) rating system for the UK market.

The game industry there, including publishers association ELSPA, does not look favorably upon the British Board of Film Classification, which itself hopes to claim a bigger piece of the UK's video game content rating pie. The BBFC is probably best known to gamers for its 2007 ban on Manhunt 2 which was later overturned on appeal.

As reported by Next Generation, ELSPA head Paul Jackson minced no words in remarks to British government officials at a media forum in Whitehall.

PEGI is the solution for today, and the solution for tomorrow.

Execs from Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft and Sega also weighed in, with Sega Europe CEO Mike Hayes adding:

If you look at the PEGI system against the film ratings board in the UK, you will see that PEGI is the only system that has the power to prevent games publishers distributing unsuitable content to children. It can ban a publisher’s entire output, rather than just a single title. This power is backed by the entire industry.

The House of Commons yesterday debated the merits of requiring game developers to ensure that their software won't cause players to experience epileptic seizures, reports Spong.

The issue was raised by Conservative John Penrose after a constituent's son experienced what is known as photosensitive epilepsy (PSE) while playing Ubisoft's Rayman Raving Rabbids. Penrose argued:

A couple of games-makers, notably Ubisoft, with which I have been in contact, have decided voluntarily and admirably to apply the sort of screening that I am suggesting to their games... and I hope that many other games manufacturers will follow their example. 

The point is that some games manufacturers may decide to do that, but there is a huge number of games-makers and manufacturers throughout the world. Some are large and responsible, such as Ubisoft, but as in any industry, there is a large number of manufacturers who are relatively tiny, and although some may be responsible, we cannot be sure.

Minister for Culture, Media and Sport Margaret Hodge, however, seemed to favor pursuing a voluntary compliance approach rather than a statutory one:

If I am unsuccessful in extending voluntary agreement for a voluntary code of conduct or if we find that it is insufficient, we can always return to the matter at a later stage.

I would like to take the issue away from today's debate and meet with ELSPA ... to see what progress can be made on a voluntary code of conduct.

In our previous GamePolitics story we described how the Federal Trade Commission went to U.S. District Court in an attempt to force Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Take-Two Interactive to cooperate in an anti-trust investigation related to Electronic Arts' potential takeover of T2.

So, why would Take-Two thumb its nose in the government's face, even to the point of reneging on previously agreed-upon conditions?

We asked financial analyst Michael Pachter (left), who covers the video game sector for Wedbush-Morgan:

I think that the reasons range from A) being incredibly savvy and holding off the FTC as a tactic to slow the process to Z) being incredibly arrogant.

 

It's hard to know where Take-Two fits on the scale from A to Z.  Their general counsel is pretty experienced, and it surprised me that he would allow the company to deal with a subpoena this way.  The FTC's action of seeking a court order is pretty severe, and shows how seriously the FTC takes this slight.

 

I'm not sure what Take-Two hopes to gain from this, other than the obvious delay to the process.  However, the process won't be delayed if Take-Two's failure to comply with the subpoena results in the FTC granting approval without looking at these documents. There is NOT a presumption of anti-competitiveness, and if EA demonstrates that the combination would not be anti-competitive, Take-Two would be better served to provide evidence to the contrary if it wishes to remain independent.

 

It seems to me that they would be best served by cooperating fully with the FTC, and by pointing to records that show how competitive their business is with EA's business.  Apparently, they have reached a different conclusion.

 

 

UPDATE: So, what's to be gained by delaying? We put that question to Pachter as well:

I think it's always in their best interest to buy more time.  Management has an incremental 720,000 shares of restricted stock that vest if the takeover happens after March 31, 2009.  More time buys them a greater ability to prove the impact that they've had on the company, and they appear sincere in their belief that they have turned Take-Two around.  More time allows Activision to close its Vivendi deal and give Take-Two a look.  Ubisoft might be interested...

As reported by Silicon Valley Insider, Take-Two Interactive execs claimed in a conference call this week that they have potential suitors other than EA. Forbes speculates that, if such suitors really exist, they might be Activision or Ubisoft.

GP: Personally, I wonder if it might make some sense for Sony to go after Take-Two. That would make the GTA series a permanent PS3 exclusive, supercharge system sales, and they could sell off the rest.

Meanwhile, GameSpot reports that Evan Wilson, financial analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, told investors that once you get past Rockstar, there's not much to like about T2:

Rockstar has supported this organization for too long and it is right to spend every dollar that it can get from Take-Two for keeping the business alive. Unfortunately, management appears to be doing the same thing without it being nearly as deserved.

 

At the same time as its cost structure is deteriorating, management is telling investors that it is the most efficient organization in the business. That simply is not true. Management talks about having a lean sales, marketing, and corporate infrastructure behind its development talent. We disagree with this as well.

Wilson also dinged Take-Two for missing release schedules and recommended that investors take EA's buyout offer before it disappears:

If it appears that virtually every major game has been delayed, you would be correct.

 

It is starting to appear that the company is back to where it started. After the success of Grand Theft Auto [IV], it will be looking at a bloated cost infrastructure relative to its revenue opportunity, which will likely be further muted by game delays and underperformance.

 

We believe that the risk of EA dropping its bid for [Take-Two] is greater than the reward of EA coming back with a modestly higher bid, and we continue to recommend that investors take profits. EA's $25.74 offer is more than fair, in our view.

Recently, GamePolitics reported that Ubisoft would be releasing a smoking cessation game for its handheld DS system.

That news did not escape the notice of the Penny Arcade crew. Hit the link for the full comic.

GP: Thanks to GP correspondent Colin "Jabrwock" McInnes for the heads-up.

Ubisoft has announced that it will release a handheld video game designed to help users kick the cigarette habit.

Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking is scheduled for November release on the Nintendo DS. The game  is based on the smoking cessation program of the same name, which currently features books, DVDs and clinics. According to an Ubisoft press release, over 10 million people have already availed themselves of the Carr method. Ubisoft exec Christian Salomon commented:

Ubisoft’s creative team has worked hard to deliver a game that successfully communicates Allen Carr’s Easyway method via play. The player experiences a truly interactive engagement with the game through which he or she learns that it can actually be enjoyable to quit smoking.

Robin Hayley, managing director of Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking, added:

There was an amazing synergy between Allen Carr’s Easyway team and Ubisoft as we worked on this project. Our experts worked hand in hand with the Ubisoft team to create an entertaining and illuminating game that delivers Allen Carr’s Easyway method in a new, dynamic and highly effective way.