A trailer for a rather bizarre erotic Japanese game imagines an alien ship accidentally taking out the Prime Minister of Japan, aliens then substituting a girl for the PM and brainwashing all mankind in order to enable the ruse.

My Girlfriend is the President (thanks? Kotaku) is an entry in the eroge category of games, and appears to be on sale already in Japan, as a 10/30/2009 date is listed at the end of the trailer.

Perhaps even better than the trailer for the game is a mashup video that combines music from the game and interjects current heads of state. Click here to go to YouTube for that one.

Both videos are rather tame and should be safe for work viewing.

If you’ve been up nights wondering what Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima thought about U.S. President Barack Obama winning a Nobel Peace Prize, today’s your lucky day. Or not.

On his Konami blog, via Joystiq, Kojima put out some thoughts on the matter that may or may not have been lost in translation. He posed a few questions, “Has the era at last started shifting?” and “The start of the Peace Walker plan?” before adding that “Peace will not walk to you. You must both walk towards one another.”

In his possible defense, Kojima was blogging from the gym.

Tuesday afternoon, Jack Thompson sent me his press release announcing that he was suing Facebook “for posting “Jack Thompson Groups” that call for his death and physical harm.”

Thompson sent three faxes to Facebook’s CEO demanding the immediate removal of the offending groups but after five weeks had received no response and the groups remained where they were.

I asked Thompson if he had tried simply clicking on the Report Group link (found at the bottom of every Facebook group) or emailing abuse@facebook.com.  According to the Facebook Safety page, complaints submitted via these methods will be addressed within 24 hours and those who email will receive a response within 72 hours detailing what actions, if any, were taken.

He responded by calling me a “total moron.”

So, I browsed Facebook and found about 80 Jack Thompson groups.  Most were of the “I Hate Jack Thompson” or “Jack Thompson is a Douche” variety but I did find three that condoned violence towards the man.  I picked a group called “I will pay $50 to anyone who punches Jack Thompson in the face” and clicked the Report Group link.  Unsurprisingly, the group was removed less than a day later. (Old link to the now deleted group)

Incidentally, this particular group turned out to be the first of four cited in Thompson’s complaint. 

So, you’re welcome, Thompson. 

Glad I could help.
 
-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Senior Correspondent Andrew Eisen...

A new, freeware game, based loosely on Space Invaders, serves up quirky game play that can result in files being deleted off a player’s computer permanently.

Aptly entitled Lose/Lose, the game generates alien sprites based on random files from a user’s computer. If aliens are shot at and destroyed, or make contact with the player’s ship, the corresponding file is deleted off the PC.

Users who don't want to risk cherished files can watch a video of game play on the title's website.

Zach Gage, the game’s developer, poses the question:

As technology grows, our understanding of it diminishes, yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly important in our lives. At what point does our virtual data become as important to us as physical possessions? If we have reached that point already, what real objects do we value less than our data?

In response to a Federal Communications Commission Public Notice seeking comments on how the term “broadband” should be defined, AT&T labeled gaming as an “aspirational” online service.

While basic web-browsing capabilities and email were termed core services in the brief dated August 31, 2009, gaming was lumped in with streaming video and real-time voice services. AT&T noted:

…for Americans who today have no terrestrial broadband service at all, the pressing concern is not the ability to engage in real-time, two-way gaming, but obtaining meaningful access to the Internet’s resources and to reliable email communications and other basic tools that most of the country has come to expect as a given.

The Entertainment Software Association replied to the FCC on September 9, 2009, taking umbrage with AT&T’s comments. Kenneth L. Doroshow, The ESA’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel stated:

Online video games are a meaningful part of our participative culture. They remove geographic barriers, connecting people from across the country and around the world. They teach cooperation, cultivate leadership skills, and empower users to express their creativity. Increasingly, games are used for training purposes and to educate students about complex social issues. Entertaining does not mean trivial.

South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford (D) has introduced a bill that, essentially, seeks to outlaw profanity.

S.56 would prohibit the public utterance or publication of printed material containing profanity. It would also make it illegal to "exhibit or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature."

On the video game front, presumably, this might encompass the F-bombs included not only in Grand Theft Auto IV's dialogue but in Band of Brothers: Hell's Highway and various other M-rated games. Movies, books, websites, magazines, music and cable TV, of course, would also be threatened.

The proposal would make the dissemination of such profanity a felony, punishable by five years in jail or a $5,000 fine. Or both.

Via: Slashdot

How awesome is your gaming rig’s sound system?
 
Hopefully it’s a little quieter than that of an unlucky 21-year-old Copenhagen man and his friend.
 
According to a report on QJ.net, the two gamer buddies were playing an unspecified PlayStation 3 title with the sound cranked up to 11.

A concerned neighbor called the local gendarmes in the belief that the sound of gunfire coming from next door was the real deal.  Perhaps thinking that a full-scale war had broken out, a Danish SWAT team was activated. The cops used a megaphone to order the men to come out and surrender.
 
The noisy gamers wisely put their controllers down without a fight and were arrested on suspicion of mayhem. They were soon released after a search of their apartment uncovered no firearms.
 
Thanks to: GP regular Shadow D. Darkman
 
-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Correspondent Andrew Eisen isn’t sure what game his neighbors are playing but it’s definitely rated AO…

 

A report in the Beijing Morning Post describes the plight of Xiao Cai, a 23-year-old man whose alleged addiction to online games caused him to attempt suicide four times.

At least one of those tries involved swallowing steel blades (in-game sword imagery?)

Chinese media site Danwei translates:

Xiao Cai was so addicted to the Internet that his mental well-being was affected. He wanted to kill himself, so he ingested saw blades... Currently his condition is stable...

 

After his mother finished feeding him, Xiao Cai became a little restless and started to fidget... He was mouthing phrases from online games, and would occasionally laugh...

Xiao Cai began playing online games in junior high school. A while after this a female netizen betrayed him, and he was so hurt that he put the majority of his time into playing online games. Xiao Cai became more and more addicted to the Internet, even to the point of being affected mentally... Before he ingested saw blades, he had also ingested sleeping pills and pesticides...

Critics have blamed violent video games for a number of egregious behaviors over the years, from school shootings to attacks on homeless people to garden variety aggressiveness.

But an article on the American Spectator posits a new - and baffling - theory of game blame. Writing for the conservative website, author Bill Croke blames violent game fans for the illegal slaughtering of animals.

By way of makinghis case, Croke mentions a couple of research studies linking violent games to negative behavior and, in an impressive leap of faith, draws a link between games and the wanton killing of wildlife:

It's a sickeningly familiar story. Two moose shot and left to rot... Two yearling grizzly bears killed... An increasing wasted antelope body count... Senselessly murdered mule deer left on the ground... All this has nothing to do with the legal autumn hunting seasons... it's "thrill killing," as wildlife managers call it... It's actually a national problem.

According to studies extant, these wildlife atrocities are committed mostly by young men aged 15 to 22, the video game generation. Much has been written about the nihilistic violence that kids are exposed to when they play some of these games...

I think it might be an easy jump to get up from a computer game, go out and pull the trigger on an elk or a deer, and then walk away with a laugh. After all, it's only a game... Yet, I think our four-legged friends will get a break soon, as the video game-thrill killing trend graduates to a higher plane: human beings.

Video games are mindless, as are the parents who let their kids play them.

UPDATE: Following up on GP's coverage, What They Play made a call to the Salmon, Idaho Public Library (Croke mentions watching teens play shoot-em-up games there in a portion of his column not cited by GP):

Interestingly, a call to the Salmon, Idaho Public Library revealed that they do not, in fact, carry video games which obviously casts some doubt over how thorough Croke has really been in his "research" for this piece. "We do not carry games, just books, DVDs, CDs, and books on tape," said the nice lady who answered the phone.

The Timothy Plan, a Florida investment firm which bills itself as "conservative Christian," is warning holiday-shopping parents away from what it calls the 30 "most offensive" video games.

While the usual suspects (GTA IV, Saints Row 2, Blitz the League II) make the list, there are some surprises as well, including the T-rated Bully: Scholarship Edition and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

In its game rankings, the organization displays an obvious anti-gay bias. While it evaluates titles for sex and nudity, a gay/lesbian rating is also included, meaning that a game with a gay sexual encounter might get a double whammy when compared to a game where the sex is of the straight variety. This effect, for instance, pushes Fable II onto the group's most offensive list. Along that line a report prepared by the Timothy Plan contains this rather bizarre comment:

Army of Two: Homosexual Encounters: ...Somewhat homo-erotic undertones between the two main characters are present.

WoW made it onto the dirty thirty, thanks to a high "addiction" rating as well as a high rating for alcohol use (curse you, Noggenfogger elixir!).

How the group determined the addiction rank is really quite unfathomable. WoW received a 3, for example, the worst possible rating, while Lord of the Rings Online got a 1 and Age of Conan a 2. In fact, all of the MMOs were tagged for addiction as well as some multiplayer games like Halo 3. A few games (The Darkness, Devil May Cry 4) were punished for "demonic" references.

Timothy Plan president Art Ally (left) comments:

Many, if not most, parents who buy their kids video games really don't know the extent of sex and violence imbedded in them. From drug use, prostitution, murder and mayhem to vulgar profanity and blasphemy these games have become a powerfully negative influence on our kids...

 

I believe, if parents would take a moment to look at the report we've created, their game selections would be quite different.

The group maintains a corporate "hall of shame" which includes game publishers EA, Take-Two and Microsoft. The Timothy Plan also offers to screen your portfolio to see if any of your mutual funds have investments in shameful companies.

So helpful!

Document Dump: Get the Timothy Plan's game score card here. The group's press release with holiday shopping warnings is here.

You may or may not buy into the idea that game addiction exists, but doctors at southern Italy's Lecce Hospital (note to self: don't get sick in Lecce) recently diagnosed a 13-year-old boy with "PlayStation addiction."

Then again, the news is coming through the filter of a politician. As reported by Ananova:

At first doctors... thought Lorenzo Amato was suffering from a stroke or a severe brain disorder.

The teenager couldn't speak and didn't seem to understand anything going on around him. Then doctors discovered he'd just finished a marathon session on his new Playstation.

Local politician Antonio Buccoliero, who spoke to the doctors, said: "They eventually managed to take care of him once they understood that this was a strange kind of mental detachment connected to his Playstation."

The boy supposedly told his father to get rid of the PlayStation, saying, "If I even think about it I want to throw up."

If comments by the head of the Copyright Alliance are any indication of things to come, it's going to be difficult, indeed, for video game consumers to have an intelligent and productive dialogue on IP issues with the video game industry. The ESA, which represents U.S. video game publishers, is a member of the copyright lobbying group.

A portion of a recent blog entry by Copyright Alliance executive director Patrick Ross seeks to marginalize those who would question or criticize the current state of IP law. Ross displays a discouraging mentality reminiscent of the Bush administration's efforts to paint Iraq War critics as soft on national defense.

With elected officials, consumer interest groups and gamers asking legitimate questions about issues like SecuROM DRM, the DMCA, ACTA, PRO-IP, and ownership of user-created content, we were disheartened to read these words from Ross:

Copyright truly is a consensus issue, with people and policymakers of all stripes recognizing its value. A few vocal blogs and a few sympathetic media outlets tend to create this notion of a war between creative industries and, well, I suppose consumers, but such a war doesn’t really exist.

The Copyright Alliance head implies that if one does not get behind IP protection as the content industry sees it, then one is either on the fringe, supportive of piracy, or both. In other words, If you're not with us, you're against us.

That's nonsense.

Honest people don't support piracy. But neither do honest people wish - or deserve - to live in an IP police state where tech-challenged elected officials accept IP industry campaign donations and proceed to pass laws that are heavily, if not completely, slanted toward big business.

Get a clue, Mr. Ross.

Earlier this week GamePolitics covered a New York Times story which reported that some gamers were leery of how Barack Obama's presidency might affect their pastime.

Writing for fidgit, longtime game journo Tom Chick (left) takes issue with the NYT (okay by me), but takes a cheap shot at GamePolitics in the process (hey, Tom Chick, don't shoot the messenger):

You know it's been a slow news day at the New York Times when they assemble a couple of scant details about the appearance of videogames in the Presidential campaign under the headline "Some Video Gamers Leery of Obama's Views"...

 

In addition to citing the inveterate cryers of "Wolf!" over at GamePolitics.com, they base their story on a user comment on 1up.com... Could this be because the post makes more sense than either the New York Times story or the 1up story it's commenting on?

As a scholar and college teacher [who] writes about games, I don't see this as any kind of whipping post that's part of Obama's policy building... The only way games will come up as a major part of any presidency anytime soon is just as it has in the past: when it's a convenient scapegoat.

However, videogames are already a factor in Obama's presidency. Like Bill Clinton before him, Barack Obama is in touch with a whole new generation of voters, and therefore American culture... While Barack Obama may not be as big a dork as us videogame players, he deserves credit for being aware that we're out here. We should be glad, not leery.

GP: Inveterate cryers of "Wolf!"???

Federal prosecutors say that former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer will face no criminal charges for patronizing a high-priced, multi-state prostitution ring.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia told CNN:

After a thorough investigation, this office has uncovered no evidence of misuse of public or campaign funds.

 

In light of the policy of the Department of Justice with respect to prostitution offenses and the longstanding practice of this office, as well as Mr. Spitzer's acceptance of responsibility for his conduct, we have concluded that the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges in this matter.

Theoretically, Spitzer could face local charges lodged by Washington D.C authorities (it's illegal to hire a prostitute), but that seems highly unlikely at this point.

As governor, Spitzer pushed hard for legislation designed to regulate video game sales. Ironically, he claimed to be concerned about the cartoon prostitutes in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series, saying:

Media content has gotten more graphic, more violent and more sex-based… Currently, nothing under New York State law prohibits a fourteen-year old from walking into a video store and buying… a game like ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ which rewards a player for stealing cars and beating people up. Children can even simulate having sex with a prostitute…

In April GamePolitics readers voted Spitzer Gaming's Biggest Political Hypocrite, beating out the likes of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and British MP Keith Vaz.

GP: Pictured are Spitzer, a GTA prostitute and 22-year-old Ashley Dupre. It was the disgraced guv's rendezvous with the would-be singer that led to his downfall in March of this year. On the other hand, if Spitzer had stuck with GTA's virtual hookers he'd still be governor.

Thanks to: GP reader seikyo for the heads-up!

As many gamers know, Gary Gygax (left), the famed creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away earlier this year.

By way of honoring the man and his achievement, the folks behind GenCon’s yearly charity auction decided to donate the proceeds to Gygax’s favorite charity, the Christian Children's Fund.  The auction, held at this year's GenCon, raised more than $17,000.
 
Unfortunately, according to a post on Live Game Auctions, the CCF refused the donation when it found out that the money would partially come from the sale of D&D merchandise.  GenCon instead donated the money to the Fisher House Foundation, an organization that enables family members to live nearby their hospitalized loved ones.
 
A curious member of the Giant in the Playground forum e-mailed the CCF about its decision and received the following reply:

Christian Children’s Fund made the decision to decline the gift from GenCon, LLC as the request presented to us gave the appearance that CCF (the organization) was an endorser or supporter of a gaming convention, which CCF was not.

 

As [with] many non-profit organizations, CCF is selective in its endorsements or support in order to maintain the integrity of its name and logo. We cannot lend our name to an event for which we have no involvement. This decision should in no way be interpreted as CCF holding an opinion on Mr. Gygax, gaming enthusiasts or the game Dungeons and Dragons.

GU Comics offers an amusing take on the situation.
 
-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen

UPDATE: Edge Online reports that our original source, Kotaku, has got this wrong. From EO:

Olivier Maeterlinck, Managing Director of the Belgian Entertainment Association, explains: “What's happening is that video rental stores are declining in popularity, and because of this those stores began to buy retail copies of games and put them up for rent. I can’t think of any country that would allow this. Rental outlets need publisher permission to rent out games, and need to buy them wholesale, just like with films.”

“The point is that stores can still put out rental copies. They just have to get permission to do so. In most countries a rental point must get permission for renting out. We are no longer any different to this system, but that doesn’t mean we are ‘banning’ game rentals.”

Edge contacted a spokesperson from Belgium’s biggest specialist game retail chain, GameMania, for clarification on the issue: “It will still be legal, yes, but the problem is that it is no longer feasible. We cannot establish rental deals with any of the major publishers, and so we will be terminating our game rental business.” 

If you thought being permanently disbarred would cause Jack Thompson to ride off into the sunset, guess again.

The ex-attorney is currently seeing fire and damnation in Bethesda's recent recall of Fallout 3 trailer videos. A rambling letter from Thompson to the Federal Trade Commission accuses the ESRB of duplicity in the enforcement of its advertising guidelines:

The ESRB’s [advertising] Principles and Guidelines are not intended to protect the public.  They are obviously intended to protect the video game industry from the public backlash prior to a hyperviolent game’s commercial release.   The ESRB, by allowing such violence in games but not in the advertising is institutionally mandating the cloaking of a game’s real content from the public in advertising.

Thus, the ESRB is actively using its “watchdog” muscle to intimidate game developers into participating in the ESRB’s long-standing shell game by which it has tried to hoodwink Congress and the American people into thinking that the video game rating system is working, that the ratings are reliable, and that minors are being protected from the sale of “Mature” games... 

And, even though Take-Two has zilch to do with Fallout 3, Thompson cannot resist taking a shot at the GTA publisher:

Take-Two, for example, knows that if it adhered to “truth in advertising,” most of its Grand Theft Auto games never would have made it out of the warehouse.  Take-Two has figured out how to collaborate with the ESRB in this shell game by which false advertising cloaks the real nature of their games until the games are released, and then it is too late...

 

Bethesda’s only sin was that it advertised truthfully what its game Fallout 3 is all about.  The ESRB’s idiotic but telling response has fashioned a noose that I expect either the FTC or Congress to slip around the ESRB’s neck...

Full letter after the jump...

There is a report floating around on Kotaku and other sites that getting yourself banned from EA's forums will also lock you out of your EA PC games. You know, the ones that you bought with your hard-earned cash.

The issue seems to be a claim by an EA community manager for C&C Red Alert 3 that forum accounts are mystically linked to one's master EA acocunt. Here's the post:

Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you'd actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It's all one in the same, so I strongly recommend people play nice and act mature.

 

All in all, we expect people to come on here and abide by our ToS. We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but its what we have to do.

Those banned will stay banned, but like most other internet services, its not that hard to create a new fake e-mail account. However, its a lot harder to get a new serial key =

GP: I'm not sure that I buy this one.

Thinking back to the confusion over whether Dead Space was or was not banned in three countries, that misinformation came from EA community managers as well. Are these guys paid employees, or are they loose-lipped volunteers?

Either way, someone at EA needs to sit on them because they are spewing questionable information that is annoying the customer base.

And, even if this is true, it can't be legal.

UPDATE: GameCyte is now calling this just a bad rumor:

EA has taken the time today to definitively squash this rumor. “Players who have been banned from EA Forums are not automatically banned from online access to their other EA games,” an EA representative told GameCyte.

 

“Posting in EA Forums is enabled by an EA Nucleus account — but access to the forums and access to the games are separate.”

A woman in Japan faces jail time after she "murdered" the avatar of the man who jilted her.

As reported by Yahoo! News, the 43-year-old piano teacher was unexpectdly dumped by her online hubby from popular MMO Maple Story. By way of payback she logged into his account and apparently deleted his avatar.

The woman has been arrested on what amounts to a hacking charge, for illegally accessing her ex's computer. She told police:

I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry.

GP: I'll confess to not having played Maple Story, so I'm ignorant of whether characters can "die". Or, are we just talking about the deletion of a character here? And, can't the people who run Maple Story retrieve the character?

If I were preparing the woman's defense, I'd argue that she had legal access to the man's account, since he apparently had given her the password at some point.

Big thanks to: GP reader Brandon for the tip!