Here are a few of the recent games that were announced via early ratings by the ESRB: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, The Last Guy and Earthbound for Wii. A change in the ESRB's submission form will likely plug up those leaks, according to a memo leaked to Next-Gen. When publishers submit their game for rating, they now have the option to choose a date when the title is eligible to be uploaded to the ESRB's website. If left blank, the game will be eligible for display 30 days after it has been rated.

The ratings board hopes that publishers don't overuse the new option. Said the memo, "The ESRB system will not work for consumers if publishers arbitrarily select dates bearing no reasonable relationship to consumer interest in the product." Our sights now turn to Australia's OFLC, Germany's USK and Britains's BBFC for early game leaks.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board has rated a previously trademarked, but still largely nebulous PlayStation 3 title called, "The Last Guy." Needless to say, we know more about the behavior and diet of the Narwhal than we know about this E10+ game -- and even then, we just had to look Narwhal up on Wikipedia. Apparently it's some sort of fish thing?

We've requested comment from the folks at Sony, but in lieu of an actual answer, let's consider the most likely (and gratuitously fabricated) explanations:

• The Last Guy (being the ultimate next-gen card game): Hook up the PlayStation Eye camera and throw down some cards with three of your mates. Match up numbers, colors and shapes as you attempt to keep your cards for as long as possible. Don't forget to shout, "Last Guy!" when you're the final card holder, or everything is forfeit. "I win!" "No way dude, you didn't say 'Last Guy!' Pick up 47 clubs!"
• The Last Guy (being the ultimate next-gen survival-horror): Following a cataclysmic scientific accident involving an egg whisk and inter-dimensional clumsiness, you find yourself to be last guy on Earth. Arming yourself with shovels, pickets, heavy brass doorknobs and whatever else you can find, you embark on a journey fraught with peril and mutated humans who are clearly not guys.
• The Last Guy (being the ultimate next-gen castle sim): As the last guy, it's up to you to foil the hero before he beats the entire game. Obstruct the moat with robot crocodiles, instruct your mindless minions and construct the most elaborate (but still homey) deathtrap in the neighborhood. Spinning columns of searing fire? Yes! Unexpectedly placed bottomless pits? Certainly! A barely supportive rope bridge with an axe conveniently located right behind you? Hey, we can't play the game for you!

[Pictured: The last guy in Final Fantasy VII.]

It's a sad day for those of us who think that a future world entirely populated by desensitized adults trained from birth to be killing machines would be totally sweet. A Federal Trade Commission "undercover shopper" study has found that retailers turned down kids trying to buy M-rated games 80 percent of the time, up 58 percent from the year prior and up from a surprising 16 percent in 2000.

Though the findings are impressive, we don't think retailers should spend too much energy patting themselves on the back. If we saw a 43-year-old FTC agent in a backwards cap and Stone Cold 3:16 T-shirt insisting his name was "Dakota," we probably wouldn't sell M-rated games to him either.

Mother fans, rejoice! EarthBound, also known as Mother 2 and the only game of the series to be released in the US, has been rated by the ESRB for the Wii. While that seems to be a good indication the game is bound for the Virtual Console, we're not going to make that leap without an official confirmation from Nintendo. Besides, given the rabid fan base of the game here, we're half-serious when we say we suspect Nintendo might consider selling the game unchanged for $50 on a disc. We guarantee it would sell like gangbusters.

An ESRB rating is the only outside hurdle the Nintendo-owned property to putting it on the Virtual Console (if that's the route they take). Now wouldn't that make for a clever Mother's Day gift, hm?

[Via VC-Reviews; thanks, Jango311]

The ESRB and National Institute on Media and the Family would like to remind (naïve) parents that Grand Theft Auto IV is not appropriate for children. In a joint statement by the two organizations, the groups point out GTA IV has been rated Mature for: Intense Violence, Blood, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Partial Nudity and Use of Drugs and Alcohol. What 12-year-old wouldn't beg to play that? It sounds awesome!

The two organizations "encourage parents to be informed and exercise their discretion when considering the purchase of all M-rated games." The ESRB reminds that the average age of a gamer is now over 30 and that some titles are "clearly not intended" for kids. And GTA IV is clearly one of those games.

Last week we thought we had a better understanding of the ESRB's policy on DLC, namely that it has to stay within the game's rating or the title can be entirely re-rated. But ESRB president Patricia Vance has clarified the statement with MTV, saying that policy only applies if the content is part of a mandatory update. If it's optional, then just the content itself will have to carry a different rating.

This would seem to open the door for AO DLC, but it may be a moot point. At least one of the big three publishers (Microsoft) has already said it wouldn't allow that on its console. So those of you planning on buying the GTA IV DLC in the hopes of seeing some hardcore polygon on polygon action are just going to have to hold on to your ... points.

We've always been curious how the ESRB handles the rating of downloadable content, especially after the Ratatouille "Hobo Murder and Cleavage" DLC pack caused such a stir earlier this year. While speaking at the MI6 Conference last week ESRB president Patricia Vance explained, saying, "they have to keep the content in the downloadable product consistent with the core rating. It can't go out of bounds." Presumably, if content was bad enough the game would have to be entirely re-rated.

Here's what we find interesting: If a publisher wanted to release AO content, but were afraid that stores wouldn't carry it, could they wait until sales were on a downturn and then release the naughty DLC? Because if it has nudity or a way of murdering people we've never tried we are totally there.

The oft-proclaimed "Master of Horror" never was much of a gamer -- he'll be the first to admit that. That's probably for the best; it would be hard to consistently produce the pants-soiling stories he's known for if he spent his days wasting away in front of his computer, looking for a PUG for the Hellfire Citadel. However, that doesn't mean he'll sit idly by as the gaming industry gets remorselessly hassled by The Man.

In a recent column for Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King decried HB 1423, a pending bill in the Massachusetts state legislature, which would outright ban the sale of "violent video games" to minors -- effectively circumventing the ESRB ratings system altogether. King, who knows a thing or two about violence, dissects the bill as eloquently as you'd expect, saying that politicians use pop culture as a "whipping boy," to illicit a passionate response from fans of the beleaguered medium, and to ignore "the elephants in the living room." Wait, you mean the popularity of violent video games isn't the biggest crisis facing the country? Get out of town!

Each week Jeff Engel and Geoff Brooks rendez-vous on Joystiq to contribute Counting Rupees, a column on the business behind gaming:

The politics of video games are well covered by other websites, but it's worth spending a little time to think about the business implications of politics on the industry and its customers -- particularly in light of recent events like the UK game study. Just how much day-to-day impact does this maneuvering really have? For all of the angst found in the gamer community over issues like the latest ridiculous violent video game ban, I'd argue that the average gamer is actually pretty well-insulated from the mess.

So who does get affected? Well, the answer lies at least in part in figuring out the touch points that politics has on politicians, developers and publishers, and the people who buy and sell games in the first place. At its most basic, there are some essential conflicts of interest between these groups that get mediated by politics, and we can use them as the lens by which to think about this further.

Let's start off with consumers themselves. What do they really want? Well, game players want to be able to play whatever they want, whenever they want to play. But they're not the only stakeholders here; for younger players, parents play an important role as intermediaries in determining what games get purchased and thus what games are available. Parents, more than anything, want control: the ability to control what their children play and filter out products that they view as offensive or objectionable. Industry figures have similarly simple incentives. They want to satisfy players' demands and supply the games they want -- that's how they make money. It's in their best interests to avoid any restrictions whatsoever on what they can produce or how they sell it. Retailers also have to worry about their brand image and how they're publicly perceived, which is why Wal-Marts don't stock Adults-Only rated games.

The ESRB launched its very own widget today. just for those who can't help but obsessively check the ratings for games. The widget is available in several different formats (except OSX Tiger, a gaffe perhaps?) and easily embeddable, allowing users to search the 14,000 titles in the organization's database with ease.

The ESRB's Madame Patricia Vance explained that the group's research showed that 75% of parents regularly check game ratings to make sure the titles are appropriate for their children, expressing her belief that the widget will make things more convenient. It sure will! Especially in our normal checks to see what unannounced games the ESRB recently rated.

Tomorrow the Massachusetts legislature will discuss a bill that would make it illegal for minors to buy video games deemed too violent by the state (not through ESRB ratings such as M or AO). No similar law exists for movies, music or books. House Bill 1423 is dubbed a "games-as-porn" bill because the rationale used to prevent minors from buying violent video games is the same used on porn. The original bill was drafted by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino (pictured) with assistance from Jack Thompson and legislative sponsor Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry (D).

GamePolitics points out HB1423 is based on a failed Utah bill and, given the history of other similar bills, it seems odd that Massachusetts would potentially be putting itself (and taxpayer dollars) at risk of repaying the ESA for fighting this bill in court.

We've all had a week to "FALCON PUNCH!" our way through the Wii's latest mega-anticipated title, scrambling for an innumerable amount of Smash Balls and mastering our technique with the subtly complex Jigglypuff, but in our excitement, we can't forget that group who is unable to join the Super Smash Bros. Brawl parade -- we speak, of course, of the twelve-and-under crowd, who are excluded from the party due to the game's Teen rating from the ESRB.

A blogger for San Jose's Mercury News recently called the mildly restrictive rating into question, claiming that the "crude humor" and "cartoon violence" present in the game is comparable to any number of children's TV shows. While we're usually not ones to disagree with North America's most esteemed game graders, we can't help but see where he's coming from.

What do you think about the rating -- is it completely unmerited, or does the game really run the risk of inspiring youngsters to attack one another with trophies and hammers?

In the April issue of EGM, Jerry Bonner, one of the first full-time raters for the ESRB, tells his side of what's going on behind the ESRB's iron curtain. Bonner says he rated 700 games during this six-month stint and has some suggestions he believes could help the organization. He recommends things like dropping the "Adults Only" and creating a "Teen 16" rating, actually letting raters play the games instead of watching videos submitted by the publisher, and for the organization to be less secretive. One of Bonner's great reveals is that the ESRB rates sequels based on "parity," meaning whatever the game's predecessor received is what the sequel will receive.

ESRB president Patricia Vance doesn't take the criticism lightly and retorts that Bonner's information has "misleading statements, factual inaccuracies, and misrepresentations." She goes on to say that the organization does not "arbitrarily" change ratings, nor does it give blanket ratings to franchises. The ESRB's secrecy is apparently in the interest of national security "integrity and trustworthiness of the ratings system." All we can say is if people didn't have to sign an NDA to get a job with the ESRB -- they will now!

Entertainment Software Ratings Board head Patricia Vance writes in the organization's winter newsletter that 2007 saw "8.5 our of every 10 games" rated as appropriate for ages 13 and under. In a flood of numbers and stats, the newsletter states there were 1,563 ratings given last year (a 22% increase over 2006), 94% of ratings "assigned were appropriate for ages 13 or younger."

The ESRB sure has some slick spin going on with its "appropriate for ages 13 or younger" stat. With its cunning use of "or" instead of "and," the organization deftly lumps T-rated games with the two levels of "E" titles. Really, it's teens 13-16 who have 'approved' access to 94% of games, while the younger crowd should only tango with 74%.

We spoke with the ESRB about why E rated titles make up such a large majority of ratings now. A spokesperson told Joystiq, "[The E ratings] growth is due in part to the recent influx of casual games for the PC, handheld devices and online arcades, etc." We learned a game could receive duplicate ratings to boost a certain category unless a publisher submits a game for multiple platforms at the same time. Also, all versions must share the same "graphical realism/intensity, and any other elements that might impact the assignment of the rating" for it to only count once. If there is "differing content, graphical realism/intensity, etc." then a single title could have multiple ratings. A game like Peggle, which has staggered onto multiple platforms over time, would boost "E" ratings for each of the game's versions.

Although Capcom has yet to announce Lost Planet: Colonies (or even explain what it is), Gamespot has pointed to the Xbox 360 and PC game's existence on the ESRB's frequently revelatory database. The mysterious Lost Planet: Colonies was first discovered last year, when Germany's USK rated the game and fueled speculation regarding the game's genre and relation to Capcom's 2007 action smash.

The ESRB also lists an equally unannounced Assault Heroes 2 for Xbox 360, which logic would dictate is a sequel to XBLA's well-received Assault Heroes.