Kids as young as 12 were able to buy M-rated games almost half the time and 15-year-olds were able to purchase M-rated games close to two-thirds of the time. The most popular M-rated games minors were able to purchase were, Grand Theft Auto, Halo 2, and Scarface.

The study found that younger sales clerks were more likely to allow minors to purchase inappropriate games, while older clerks were more compliant with existing store policies. Nine out of 10 sales clerks say they understand the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating system, only 60 percent of stores train employees on how to enforce the rating on the game’s box.

More than half of parents (54%) claim to use the ratings. However 72 percent of parents know little or nothing about the ratings system overall and many could not identify the meanings of specific ratings such as AO (Adults Only) and EC (Early Childhood).

"In conclusion, this year’s ratings enforcement survey is discouraging. After progress in previous years, the overall compliance rate slipped badly this year," the institute said in its report.

"Although certain factors, such as clerk age and big box retailer compliance, seem to account for some of this backtracking, it is unclear why, after years of pressure and claims from corporate representatives that policies are in place, retailers are still not adequately enforcing the ratings."

The poll found that 81 percent of all children play video games at least occasionally, and 38 percent of adults say they play video games as well. Out of adults that play video games 45 percent are female.

"These findings underscore gaming’s broadening reach," said Ralph Rivera, Vice President of AOL Games. "It’s not about eating dots and shooting pixilated aliens anymore. Today, games are multi-million dollar productions that range from kid-friendly to adults-only fare."

When it comes to how many hours a week parents spend playing video games with their kids, 43 percent said they never play with their kids and 30 percent said less than an hour. Younger parents were more likely to play games with their kids than older parents.

Eighteen percent of those surveyed said they were very or somewhat likely to purchase a video game console like an Xbox, Nintendo, or Playstation during the upcoming holiday season. Thirty-five percent said they were likely to purchase video games. Fifty-one percent of those planning to buy a console during the holiday season said that price was the most important consideration followed by recommendations from friends and family (34%).

More than half of adult gamers are under 40 years old, and 27 percent are under the age of 30. Just a third of adult gamers are married and have children. The average adult gamer spends 2 hours each week playing video games. The number increases to 4 hours per week for fans of shooting games, and 5 hours for fans of adventure and role-playing games. Ninety-three percent said the usually play online games at home and 5 percent said they played games at work or school.

Major League Baseball crushed the purchases of digital game videos like they were a hanging curveball looping over the plate. The League shut down the DRM server managing the licenses of old video purchases, and just like that, those purchases have been eliminated.

Author Allan Wood has posted his anger at The Joy of Sox. He bought 71 videos, which along with discs to burn the games to cost him $280.45. As he says, he now has about six dozen coasters thanks to MLB.

This is not a new problem. Wood has been battling with MLB since the League deleted a license page in 2006. Videos would connect to that page to unlock the game and allow it to be played back.

Baseball fans who purchased those videos are the ones who have been played instead. Wood’s recent exchange with a customer service supervisor for MLB illustrated the problem:

"MLB no longer supports the DDS system" that it once used and so any CDs with downloaded games on them "are no good. They will not work with the current system."

I was told there is absolutely nothing MLB can do about these lost games. Plus, they said my purchases were all "one-time sales" and thus "there are no refunds".

Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing, a long-time DRM critic, commented on the situation:

MLB shut down the DRM server because they’ve changed suppliers, and now they expect suckers to buy downloads of games in the new DRM format. Anyone who does this needs their head examined — using DRM itself is contemptible enough, but using DRM this way is just plain criminal.

How does the song go? "And it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out in the old ball game." Yet fans will likely continue to reward the League by attending games in the millions, since game downloads probably don’t represent a huge part of the revenue stream. Enjoy your coasters, and don’t forget to renew those season tickets, fans.

UPDATE! MLB does the right thing, makes updated versions of games available for those who purchased ones under the old DRM scheme. Power of the Internet strikes again.

…game publishers will be able to use the Google system to put advertising in their games, and advertisers will be able to work through the Google system to buy ad space within games. Schaffer said it will start with ads in Web-based games, with plans to move into PC and console games later on.

Google will roll out both video and text-based ads, but there’s no timeframe for launch, other than “soon.”

And in case anyone thought Google might have an interest in developing their own video games – they don’t.

“I’m going to be very clear right now,” Stolar said. “Google is involved in in-game advertising. I’m going to say it one more time, in case there’s any misconceptions here: in-game advertising. This is an area that Google believes will have tremendous growth over the next number of years. …”

“No Gbox, Bernie?” asked Google’s Greg Schaffer, playing along.

Nope, no plans for a console, Stolar said. And no “Google Live,” no video-game portal, and no video-game search, he said. Later, Stolar reiterated, “We are not going to be a publisher or a developer or a portal for games, at all. That’s the jobs of everybody here. That’s why we want to partner with you.”

So you heard them loud and clear – they’re planning to build mobile video games.

via

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Google’s Got Game. Advertising, That Is

Adscape hasn’t formally announced the deal, which is being reported in Red Herring. The deal is on a much lower scale than the one that brought in-game ad firm Massive to Microsoft and its Xbox Live platform.

If Google can get Adscape even close to Massive’s level, the $23 million price tag being discussed will look like one of the greatest bargains ever. Microsoft’s Massive deal had been rumored to be in the $200 million to $400 million range.

Microsoft has Xbox Live, the online game network where they could integrate Massive’s technology right away. Massive also had existing deals with game developers like Ubisoft and Konami, giving Microsoft an additional potential outlet for their adCenter and other advertising clients.

For Google, the challenge should be to find partners willing to bring Adscape to their online games. That should not be a big problem, as video games now rival movies in terms of production costs. Another revenue stream above and beyond the retail channel will be welcome in game studios.

The appeal for advertisers goes straight to the demographic nearest and dearest to Madison Avenue’s heart. Those are young men ages 18-24 who can’t be reached with TV or Internet ads. Their online game play replaces time they would have spent in front of the tube or clicking on links.

Nick Gonzalez at TechCrunch makes a nice tie-up observation in his post about the deal: “This is an interesting development considering Google

However, how would you react if someone else debuted a similar game at the next big conference, essentially stealing the buzz you created and perhaps cheapening the idea? What if this person is someone you may have worked with in the past? If you are like most people, the idea is not very becoming, especially if your idea was original enough to become a point of reference for the very concept you were exploring.

Welcome to the young world of linkbait games.

The original game being referenced is called DrinkBait, which is an offshoot of the SEO Drinking Contest developed by Nathaniel Broughton. Chris Hooley came up with the idea of buying individual drinks (the kind in the shot bottles) for those on the drinking contest list and then taking a picture with them (Check out our video interview with Chris and Nathaniel). In short, Chris’ idea was a major success and everybody was talking about it after he pulled it off.

Fast forward to the Chicago SES and we find out that Liana Evans (Hooley used to write for her blog) is conducting another linkbait exercise that’s awfully similar to the one Chris conducted at Vegas – a game called hatbait. The idea behind hatbait is to get your picture taken wearing a certain hat. The purpose is duplicate the same kind of buzz Hooley started in Vegas, albeit using a different prop… and this is where things go sour.

Hooley blogged a response about the hatbait game and needless to say his reaction wasn’t the greatest. In fact, the title of Hooley’s post should be an indicator of how much he was bothered by Evans’ action – Hatbait Killed Me. His post went on to explain he felt understandably betrayed because he told Evans a number of details concerning DrinkBait as well as future exploits. He felt these discussions were confidential, not ideas that could be capitalized upon.

Over at SEOMoz, Rand Fishkin posted an intriguing idea about this incident, essentially asking could Hooley have protected his idea in an intellectual property sense. During the ensuing discussion, both Evans and Hooley posted responses detailing each other’s position, which generated even more response posts.

Despite the discussions, Rand’s question still lingers – is there anything Chris could’ve done to protect his ideas or is he a victim of the look and feel defense (PDF) that confounded Adobe’s efforts against Macromedia Fireworks for so long… that is until they bought them.

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Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.

Hollywood voice actors have been an increasing presence in video games. The video game industry earns about as much as the film studios do, $10 billion USD annually. Their big titles have multi-million dollar budgets, and publicity for the biggest titles matches that for summer blockbusters.

But the game companies, while valuing the contributions of Hollywood voice talent, don’t value it enough to agree to contract terms that include residual payments. They describe the voice actor contributions as a small part of a massive development effort, and want to continue paying a flat rate.

After the existing 3 and a half-year agreement between the gaming companies expired, a new agreement that would boost voice actor wages and increase benefit contributions made by the interactive industry to union benefit plans seemed to have been hammered out in early June.

That agreement was going to be accepted with extreme reluctance by SAG and the smaller American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). The latter has already accepted the agreement, which will go into effect July 1.

But SAG, with two factions competing over the agreement, among other issues, could not find the 60 percent approval from its board to accept the new deal.

SAG national executive director Greg Hessinger said in a Hollywood Reporter story: “While the tentative agreement they reached included several key gains, the guild’s national executive committee has made the final determination that this proposal was not enough. We will now explore our options.”

Some contracts for movies destined for a video game tie-in require its actors to provide voice talent to the game. While they will see a pay raise, they won’t see those coveted residuals in this contract.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

Though the sampling size was a small cluster of younger than usual stroke-afflicted subjects with an average age 57, doctors believe the findings show some promise.

Patients played games where they could deep-sea dive with sharks, climb up and down stairs, or snow board down a mountain. Brain scans performed after the tasking showed a reorganization of brain function and patients demonstrated improved ability to climb steps and keep control of their weakened legs.

What was striking was that the patients were past the year mark after their strokes. Little improvement is expected past one year.

“This was a group of people that you would not expect to improve, and that’s what made it interesting that they did,” said Dr. Robert Felberg, director of the stroke program at Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans.

Though it doesn’t appear that video game therapy has an advantage over other therapies, doctors say it may be a good way to keep patients engaged in therapy.

“People love to play games,” said study co-author Dr. Mark Hallett, chief of the human motor control section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

The new rating, E10+, informs parents the content contained in the video game is suitable for children aged 10 and older. The ESRB website describes the rating as

Titles rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) have content that may be suitable for ages 10 and older. Titles in this category may contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language, and/or minimal suggestive themes.

In an article on Techtree.com, Patricia Vance, president of ESRB, had these comments:

“The content of computer and video games continues to advance in terms of sophistication, complexity and graphic quality. Given this evolution, the new E10+ rating category will provide consumers, particularly parents, with more precise guidance on the age appropriateness of certain titles, fulfilling our goal of helping ensure that the right games are selected for their children and families.”

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In 1951, as an engineer making television sets, Baer had the passing thought that adding a gameplay element to TV might be fun. His bosses disagreed. Instead of dismissing the idea, though, Baer buried it in his brain and…

Read this article at CNNmoney.com.

Founded in October 2001, CNN/Money, www.money.com, is one of the Internet’s leading sources for breaking business news, personal finance commentary and planning tools. Working with the editors of MONEY magazine and the CNNfn television network, CNN/Money delivers all the day’s pressing financial stories and goes beyond the headlines to show how they affect our users’ financial well-being. In less than a year, CNN/Money has more than doubled its audience share and been featured in Barrons, Crain’s New York Business, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Cleveland Plain Dealer and San Francisco Chronicle for its thoroughness and ease-of-use.