"Ten years ago, a kid 10 years old could walk into any store in America and buy an ultra-violent, adult-rated game. That's no longer true," Walsh said of the 13-year-old NIMF's chief legacy. It was founded in the days of mainstream panic over titles like Duke Nukem and Doom, but industry types credit Walsh's leadership for having proportionate reactions to legitimate parental concerns, rather than exploiting them.

"Were it not for those collaborative efforts by all sides, it's questionable whether there would have been a non-legislative resolution," Hal Halpin, the president the Entertainment Consumers Association, told the AP. NIMF was very influential in the creation of the ESRB's rating system, which helped stave off government interest in regulating content.

Although Walsh expressed shock at watching 10-year-olds play games in which they dismembered their foes, he always maintained that he never endorsed censorship. And while NIMF was a critical actor in the "Hot Coffee" controversy that exposed sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - leading to its brief AO classification and resulting loss of sales - NIMF's report cards weren't dedicated to blaming games for everything. Parents fared worse than game makers and retailers in the group's 2008 report card, the last it will produce.

Unfortunately, this final quote, by author Steven L. Kent, will likely prove true: "I think the game industry will look back and pine for the days when their top opposing voice had as much self-restraint as Dr. Walsh had."

Video Game Watchdog Shuts Down, Victim of Economy [Associated Press on Yahoo! News]

"Outpaces," is the word the FTC's report uses in describing the games industry's conduct among its peers, noting the 80 percent prevention rate in keeping M-rated content from minors, and keeping ads for M-rated games off the television prior to 10 pm.

Further: "The Commission commends the ESRB for its new online ratings summaries, which provide a more detailed explanation of the content that factored into a game's rating. This tool should enhance parental understanding of the ratings and the ratings process."

Entertainment Software Association President Michael Gallagher called the report "a strong acknowledgement and validation that industry-led self-regulation efforts are the best way to provide parents and retailers with the resources and support they need to keep our kids' entertainment experiences suitable."

The report evaluates the marketing and adevertising practices across the entertainment industries. It's the FTC's seventh such report since 2000.

Games Industry Best Regulated of All Entertainment Sectors [GamesIndustry.biz]

"LittleBigPlanet" being mentioned in the same sentence as "Barack Obama" — and of video games being included in the President's push for new ways to inspire kids to learn science, technology, engineering and math — sat well with Entertainment Software Association chief Michael Gallagher today.

"This is a very, very good day for the gaming industry," he told Kotaku. "This is a significant leap into maturity and toward acceptance."

Earlier in the day, Gallagher literally sat one row behind former astronaut Sally Ride and right near the former chairman of Intel and the current head of Sesame Street at a Washington, D.C. press conference where Obama announced plans for "Educate To Innovate," a series of mostly privately-funded initiatives to improve kids' knowledge of and enthusiasm for math and science.

The new programs could be the gaming industry's reach for the stars, to build on an astronomical analogy Gallagher said he used with White House officials as the new programs were taking shape. "Much as the space program inspired a generation of children to go into engineering," he said. "Today's learners are inspired by video games." Those who make games, in other words, have the capacity to influence America's youth toward scientific and technological greatness.

The gaming aspect of the Obama program involves two contests, both geared toward making games that will help children learn science, technology, engineering or math, so-called STEM topics. One contest involves the design of LittleBigPlanet levels. The other challenges developers to make browser games for children of different ages. Both embody what Gallagher says are the two defining characteristics of the gaming industry: Innovation and Competition.

But today was unusual. The video game industry doesn't often get a call from the White House, as the ESA did three months ago, to launch the programs announced today. Rare is the Administration that refers to games at all in a positive way.

Perhaps equally rare is an Administration that even understands games. Gallagher, who worked in the George W. Bush White House said that the "communication gap was a lot smaller" dealing with Obama officials. Some of the current President's speech writers, after all, recently stopped by an ESA reception to play The Beatles Rock Band, he said.

The ESA has also worked to promote the reputation of games and has enjoyed the findings of groups such as the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, which announced earlier this year that it saw games playing a key role in the future of education.

All of this may have helped produce a climate that led the White House to think positively about games.

"There is a preponderance of belief that we're a force for good and quality, as opposed to being stigmatized," Gallagher said.

So it wasn't a complete shock to the ESA that, three months ago, the White House contacted the group to invite the gaming industry to get involved in the President's education initiative.

From that request emerged the STEM National Video Game Competition, the browser game challenge, which will involve not just the ESA and the Information Technology Industry Council (an advocacy group for tech companies), but also Microsoft and Games4Change, a group dedicated to supporting games that serve a social good.

Anyone will be able to make games for the contest, vying for a portion of the total prize of $300,000. Even more alluring may be Gallagher's belief that the winning entries, which will be announced in June at E3, could become part of school curricula as soon as next school year. "We could be reaching and saving today's learners," he said, not waiting for a future generation and giving up already on today's kids.

"The objective is learning, not teaching," Gallagher said of the games he hopes people will make. He explained that a popular belief among educators is that teaching — the dispensing of information — is over-emphasized in school programs and that more attention needs to be paid toward learning — what goes on in a child's mind. It's learning where games have such strong potential, Gallagher argued, because the medium already has proven it has the ability to captivate a child's imagination and tap his or her curiosity.

The other program announced today involves Sony providing 1,000 PlayStation 3s and copies of LittleBigPlanet as part of an effort backed by the MacArthur Foundation to encourage learning through digital means.

Despite what Gallagher referred to as commendable efforts by Sony and Microsoft to get involved, they are just two gaming-related companies, the only two that were part of today's news. Gallagher says that is merely a function of how quickly the new programs came together and is confident that other gaming companies will get involved in similar efforts.

"We should be proud of this moment because it shows a maturity of our industry," Gallagher told Kotaku today. "It shows an acceptance of our industry as vital to our country's ability to meeting significant challenges." If video games can help America get better at science, technology, engineering and math, Gallagher would consider that a job well done.

[PIC]

President Barack Obama announced the overarching directive that the gaming plans are part of at a White House press conference that furthers the Administration's commitment to its STEM program, an initiative for focusing on science, technology engineering and math education. The new push is dubbed "Educate to Innovate."

Among the participating private-backed initiatives that are part of the program, according to a run-down in the New York Times, is a two-year focus on science on Sesame Street, a commercial-free science programming commitment by the Discovery Channel, a new website backed by Time Warner Cable, as well as a variety of video game initiatives.

"Our industry's lifeblood is the energy and innovation of new, emerging developers," Michael Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, the industry's lobbying group, said in a press release today. "To create the next generation's epic titles and incredibly immersive storylines, we need America's youth to have strategic and analytic thinking skills along with complex problem solving abilities. It is my hope that it will produce games that will have a lasting impact on the STEM skills our nation's students so desperately need."

The Sony LittleBigPlanet initiative, Game Changers, is part of a $2 million 2010 Digital Media and Learning Competition funded by the MacArthur foundation. It involves Sony donating 1000 PlayStation 3s and copies of LittleBigPlanet to libraries and community organizations. Participants will strive to create levels that involve science, technology, engineering and math.

A second program, called the Stem National Video Game Competition, was also announced. It is a three-pronged $300,000 contest encouraging entrants to create the best browser video games that teach the STEM disciplines for a trio of age ranges: 4-8, 8-12 and 12-16. This competition is intended to reach "historically underserved populations including girls and minority students," according to an ESA press release. Specifics for this contest will be announced in early 2010, with winners showcased at E3 in June.

The gaming initiatives announced today are backed by the Information Technology Industry Council, an advocacy group. Microsoft and the Games4Change group are also both involved in these plans, according to the ESA release.

More details about both contests will be announced in the next few weeks, according to the ESA.

The closure is apparently tied to the end of funding from a primary NIMF source, Fairview Health Services, which had committed $750,000 annually to the Institute. WCCO-TV of Minneapolis reported that Fairview Health Services knew back in the summer that, in light of the current economy, "We can't continue," supporting NIMF.

NIMF was known for its annual Video Game Report Card, released around this time of year. The 2008 report gave an A grade to the ESRB, for its new game rating summaries; a B+ to retailers, for following rating and sales policies, and an "incomplete" to parents for not availing themselves of parental controls or closely following what their kids play.

While NIMF occasionally blasted the odd violent video game here or there, at least it wasn't part of the tinhorn orchestra that obligated the ESRB and retailers to do all the parenting by themselves. Game Politics notes that the Entertainment Software Association gave NIMF a $50,000 grant last year.

In a statement, NIMF said it hopes to continue its programs and research through other non-profit organizations.

NIMF to Close at Year End [Game Politics]

I'd probably fall into both categories had KRC Research, who surveyed 1,001 U.S. adults earlier this month, had bothered to ask me. They didn't, though they did get a hold of a nice little cross-section of people, 52% who felt that video games were a good gift option given the current economy. The popularity of video games continues to grow, with the giving/receiving figure up 9% from 2007, with the number of women intended as game recipients jumping 31% from two years ago, or 47% of respondents.

"Computer and video games are topping holiday lists because they provide a superior entertainment value for the whole family," said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA... "With 68 percent of American households playing computer and video games, U.S. consumers value the creative and innovative products the entertainment software industry produces and are seeking them out for themselves and to give as gifts."

Of course to most of us, these numbers mean nothing. I've been giving video games as gifts since I bought myself my first Sega Genesis. Wait, does gifting yourself count?

What makes old Doug worthy of standing alongside Sony's Ken Kutaragi and Nintendo of America founders Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa? Lowenstein founded the ESA, the industry's most important and influential trade body, which helped establish video games as a respected cultural force. He helped lead the industry through rough times, combating the unconstitutional video game bills that the government considered following the wake of the Columbine school massacre. From the founding of the ESRB to the launch of E3, Lowenstein was there.

Plus, he's rather humble.

"This Lifetime Achievement Award represents the greatest professional honor I have ever received and I am grateful beyond words to the AIAS," said Lowenstein. "To be honored for doing a job I loved, and fighting for values I deeply hold on behalf of an industry and people I felt privileged to represent, let alone to be in the company of Howard Lincoln, Minoru Arakawa, and Ken Kutaragi, is profoundly humbling."

Lowenstein retired from his position as ESA president in 2006, but his contributions to the industry will be felt as long as we continue playing. Wise choice, Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.

The ESA's study said 54 were added since 2008, a 27 percent rise in the number of video game-related degree programs in the U.S. Among states, California quite expectedly offers the most video game-related degrees, at 46 institutions, with the University of California-Irvine recently establishing a center for games and virtual worlds research. New York, Texas and Florida are the other leading states, in that order.

The utility of these programs extends beyond game creation; the ESA also said a poll found that 70 percent of "major employers" use some form of interactive software, including games, in employee training. Of those, three-fourths expect to expand their usage of such methods in the next three to five years.

Like any popular and growing field, graduates can certainly expect to find a competitive jobs environment. But the growth and the mainstreaming of programs built specifically for game design show the industry's deepening acceptance by and impact to big business in America.

More Colleges than Ever Offering Gaming Degrees [CNET]

The Nite to Unite for Kids is an annual event presented by the Entertainment Software Association and hosted by the ESA Foundation that raises money for children's charities. It's also a night to celebrate gaming luminaries like Shigeru Miyamoto, Howard Lincoln, Ken Kutaragi, and George Lucas. Now Yves Guillemot joins their ranks. ESA president and CEO Michael Gallagher explains why.

"Yves saw the potential of computer and video games long before most and worked diligently to translate that vision into reality. His company, whose name is derived from ‘ubiquity' in reference to their ambition to make games worldwide, has not only achieved that goal but surpassed it."

Since 1999, the Nite to Unite for Kids event has raised more than $11 million for children's charities. This year's event will take place on Tuesday, October 13th at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. For more information, visit the event's official web page.

Quoting the Progress and Freedom Foundation, the report, published Aug. 31, says ESRB ratings are "in many ways the most sophisticated, descriptive, and effective ratings system devised by any major media sector in America." The parental control functions of the three current-gen consoles, plus Windows PCs, are also highlighted. The report mentions that game ratings are highly recognized and useful to parents (58 percent find them helpful, according to a third-party survey), and the percentage of kids buying M-rated games dropped dramatically from 2006 to 2008, according to the FTC.

Significantly, the report also says that the FCC considers "that video game players and video games are not the focus of the Child Safe Viewing Act," the piece of legislation that started this universal-rating discussion. "Video game players are not included among the devices specifically identified in Section 2(b)(2) of the Act, and video games are not mentioned in the Senate Report and were not discussed in the Senate hearing on the Act."

But the FCC inquiry did include video games when it sought comment on universal regulation, in light of their popularity with kids and concerns about their content. The majority of comments, the FCC noted, "take the position that video games should not be reviewed in this proceeding."

Final score: The ESRB gets a thumbs-up to Congress, and the legislation in question does not even concern video game consoles in the first place. If you like, you may download a pdf of the entire report and read it yourself.

FCC Cites Success of VIdeo Game Rating System [CNET]

In the ESA's last fiscal year, state legislatures introduced 43 bills that would have regulated the content or access to video games. No bill regulating sales became law. The most notable failures came in Utah, California and New Mexico.

Not all of the ESA's relationships with state lawmakers are so antagonistic. The annual report also touts the three states - Alabama, Georgia and Michigan - that enacted tax incentives to lure video game development, and another 17 states still considering the idea.

At the federal level, the game industry's top lobby focused on copyright and IP protection, and also beat back efforts at game content regulation. Internationally, piracy remains a top concern to the ESA; it says it sent takedown notices to ISPs that covered "more than 45 million instances of infringement of member company games in more than 100 countries world wide."

The ESA added seven members, including Southpeak Interactive, XSEED Games and Koei Corp. The 160,000-member Video Game Voters Network, sponsored by the ESA, was also highlighted in the report. The VGVN organizes letter-writing campaigns to elected officials and candidates whenever legislation or political sentiment threatening games pops up.

You can grab the entire report [pdf] here

The FCC will begin the inquiry after they deliver a report on media blocking and rating techniques to Congress on Aug. 31, two commission officials told Bloomberg.

The purported FCC action will come following congressional inquiries into whether children are harmed by inappropriate content and questions by senators about whether the laws need to be changed to protect children.

While the report, due to hit next week, won't make any recommendations, it will announce that kick off of their look at universal ratings. The report looks specifically at technology that can block programming by ratings, which is, apparently, why movies aren't included on the list.

Broadcasters met with the FCC earlier this month, warning them that a compulsory ratings system could be a violation of the First Amendment.

Reached for comment by Kotaku, the Entertainment Software Association echoed that sentiment.

"The ESA appreciates the FCC and its important role. However, the ESRB rating system is considered by parents, family advocates, the Federal Trade Commission, and elected officials as the gold standard in providing caregivers with the information they need to make the right choices for their families," said Rich Taylor, senior vice president for communications and industry affairs, at the ESA. "Universal ratings will, in the end, only serve to confuse consumers, violate the Constitution's first amendment, and are a solution in search of a problem."

Earlier this year, Taylor told Kotaku that the Barack Obama administration no longer seemed focused on Universal Ratings and that the president seemed gamer friendly.

U.S. Will Consider Single Rating System for TV, Phones, Games [Image]

Even if you weren't one of the chosen few, you can still get a lot from watching what went on at the panel. I pulled some quotes I thought were interesting, but really, there's much more wisdom and points for discussion to be had from the total two hour run of the panel.

In particular, I call your attention to the Part 6 and 7 clips where the panelists talk about the importance of having gay characters in games and respond to that effed up game, Watch Out Behind You, Hunter!

VIDEO: GLAAD's Panel on Homophobia & Virtual Communities [GLAAD Blog]

The suit challenges the transit authority's prohibition against advertising computer and video games rated Mature or Adults Only. There is no such prohibition against advertising R-rated movies, mature TV shows or music.

The association says the ban is a violation of the guarantees of free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

"The CTA's ordinance constitutes a clear violation of the constitutional rights of the entertainment software industry," said Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of the association. "Courts across the United States, including those in the CTA's own backyard, have ruled consistently that video games are entitled to the same First Amendment protections as other forms of entertainment. The CTA appears unwilling to recognize this established fact, and has shown a remarkable ignorance of the dynamism, creativity and expressive nature of computer and video games. The ESA will not sit idly by when the creative freedoms of our industry are threatened."

The ordinance was enacted in January, hitting just months after the authority reached a settlement with Rockstar Games that allowed the company to advertise Grand Theft Auto IV on their billboards for six weeks, as part of a settlement.

A similar ordinance was overturned in Denver in 2007.

The association's suit contends that the new Chicago ordinance unconstitutionally "restricts speech in a public forum that is otherwise open to all speakers without a compelling interest for doing so." and that the ordinance "impermissible discriminates on the basis of viewpoint and ignores less restrictive means of achieving the supposed ends of the ordinance."

We've contacted the Chicago Transit Authority for comment and will update if and when they respond.

Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer at EA's Maxis
To developers: "Who doesn't want to be a gay super hero? Are you thinking about this stuff when you're making your game? Well you should be!"

Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the Entertainment Software Association
About the ignorance of the general public toward gaming: "We need to come together. We need gay and lesbian gamers to step forward. Come out, and then come out again as gamers."

Stephen Toulouse, Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement, Xbox Live
On expressing sexuality in Gamertags: "Who we choose to love is part of our identity."

Cyn Skyberg, Vice President of Customer Relations at Linden Lab
On expressing sexuality online: "The process for how we display ourselves as we really are [determines] what are the values we have as a virtual community."

Flynn DeMarco, founder of GayGamer.net and Kotaku alumnus
On blogs and gaming sites censoring the n-word, but not the other f-word in headlines: "They need to let people know that it's not okay [to use that word]."

There were two other issues that came to mind as a result of the panel that, sadly, I didn't encounter until after the Q&A ended. The first was brought up by my friend over at GamesRadar, Henry Gilbert: On Xbox Live, you can download McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden icons – so is the message that it's somehow more acceptable to express political orientation than sexual orientation?

The second issue stemmed from the part of the panel where moderator Justin Cole brought up the Flash game Watch Out Behind You, Hunter!, where players have to shoot gay men to keep from being raped: I thought to myself, what if you re-skinned the hunter to be a woman on her way home late at night from a club? Would that somehow make the game more acceptable because it removes the anti-gay sentiment? Or is it equally uncool because the game still advocates murder as a solution to sexual assault?

Discuss.

Cole used commenters' responses to his post, The Impact of Homophobia in Virtual Communities, to drive discussion among panelists Caryl Shaw (Senior Producer at EA's Maxis), Dan Hewitt (Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the Entertainment Software Association), Stephen Toulouse (Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement, Xbox Live), Cyn Skyberg (Vice President of Customer Relations at Linden Lab) and Flynn DeMarco (founder of GayGamer.net). Read on to see if you made the cut.

First up was McLuvin's comment about flaunting sexuality. Next was GameBuddy, continuing the discussion. Then came bLaZINcOdE3's comment about the "gay mafia" forcing companies to hold "token meetings." OrigamiNinja's comment about how harassment makes the game less fun made it in, as did Nnooo's about whether or not gamers can expect Mario to save a prince instead of a princess someday. User saulpimpson's comment steered talk toward developers refusing to make games based on gay or gay bashing content. Then DanoruX's tongue-in-cheek "this is so gay," statement got a discussion going on "innocent" slurs. Phydeaux's comment on "play to file" introduced the topic of abuse reporting in online communities. Lastly, ach77 made it in as part of a general statement that gay gamers just want to have fun like every other gamer – and to introduce the founder of gay-centric World of Warcraft guild, The Spreading Taint who happened to be in the audience.

Aside from being shamelessly proud of Kotaku commenters, I was interested to see how Kotaku alumnus DeMarco reacted to comments from his ex-audience. He did almost half the talking at the panel and demonstrated the most gaming expertise. Whenever an issue was raised, DeMarco could name at least two games in response whereas everyone else just fell back on their own games (like Shaw's Spore and Skyberg's Second Life) or defaulted to Halo.

The other big talker was Microsoft's Toulouse, but I think he was being targeted. At the beginning of the panel, Cole presented a video that outlined the issues facing gays and lesbians in online gaming. All of their in-game examples seemed to be from Xbox Live – most specifically, Halo multiplayer. To his credit, Toulouse responded to almost every issue raised by Kotaku comments and admitted that Xbox Live hasn't got it right quite yet – but they're committed to making their community a safe place to game for everybody.

The quietest panelist was Second Life's Skyberg. It takes all types to make a virtual world like Second Life and I know they've had issues that prompted developer Linden Lab to create an adults-only space. Skyberg did pipe up at one or two times to talk about anonymity making it easy for people to use gay slurs in online communities – and made an excellent point that as people invest in their online identities more, this anonymity goes away.

The only dull part of the panel was the Q&A. I'm not sure if it's because the two hour time limit was almost up and everybody wanted lunch, or because the audience was the choir being preached to – but nobody asked anything that hadn't been addressed. One lady asked if the "dehumanizing" aspect of violent games like Halo brought about gay bashing and DeMarco responded that the problem wasn't that the game that engendered homophobia, it was that the audience that the game tended to attract was immature and ignorant of gay issues.

In sum, this is what I took away from the panel: Don't hate the game, hate the player. Or better yet, don't hate anybody.

The ability to download and purchase Apps from the App Store can now be limited by rating. The ratings are based on for what age the games are appropriate: No Apps, 4+, 9+, 12+, 17+ and all Apps.

The device also allows people to disable the ability to make in-App purchases. It also allows similar policing of movies, music and TV shows.

Both the ESA and the ESRB have called for the ratings of games on the Apple devices, suggesting that the ESRB could handle the work.

Ngmoco's Neil Young says he doesn't think the ratings board is set up to handle the massive in-flux of games. Under the Apple system game developers and publishers have to police their own games by turning in a form with about ten criteria on it. Apple then uses that to assign an age rating.

"I would rarther that system than the ESRB," Young said. "Going through the ESRB would slow down and cripple the growth of the App Store. Right now Apple has a very light weight system for approving games, it really helps the time to market for a game.

"I think the current system will serve both customers and developers."

In the past two weeks, ESA chief Michael Gallagher and ESRB head Patricia Vance have both called for the rating of iPhone and iPod Touch games. Not all of them all at once, but it would further legitimize the ESRB, which the ESA set up in 1994. It would essentially eliminate a competitor - Apple's own ratings - in a growing market and cement the ESRB's claim to being the only trustworthy rating out there. But would the ESRB have the capacity to handle ratings submitted by a developer population that is far larger than those creating console and PC games?

"ESRB has seen increases in rating submissions each year since its founding and has always been able to keep pace," the ESRB's Eliot Mizrachi told us. "We have rated more than 70 mobile games to date and will undoubtedly rate more in the future as the market grows."

Seventy? Over the past, what, four or five years? It's a piddling number when you think of the hundreds of games available through the App Store. Further, many of them are mobile adjuncts to console releases, a different sort of beast from iPhone games. Not all of those need or deserve a rating; but if Apple brings in the ESRB to rate games, with the idea that it'll help parents control what their kids buy for their iPods, then unrated games are likely to be blocked by such filters. The incentive would definitely be there to get a game rated.

And what of the cost? Getting a game rated isn't a free service; the ESRB levies a fee that covers the cost of looking through the code and rating the game. Mizrachi said their existing process for mobile and casual games allows for steep discounts - like 80 percent - in rating fees for games that cost less than $250,000 to develop.

Mizrachi swore that the ESRB is not agitating for rating App Store games because it means more money to them. "Given our highly discounted rate for lower-budget games, rating mobile games is not a financially attractive proposition," he said. "Apple's integration of ESRB ratings into its parental controls for iPhone games would afford parents the ability to block those video games that carry an ESRB rating utilizing the same tool they are being offered to block video content that has been rated by the MPAA or carries an official TV rating. It's about giving parents the same ability to do on the iPhone what they are being offered with other entertainment content."

"We were in contact early with the transition team and they invited us into those sessions," Gallagher said. "So we've had very good dialog with the administration."

Gallagher, who served as the chief telecommunications and policy advisor to the George W. Bush Administration , said he stayed close to friends of his in D.C. trying to figure out who would be handling what as the new administration took form shortly after Obama's election.

"Right now the administration is very correctly focused on a lot bigger issues than whatever issues we might represent," Gallagher said. "I personally think we represent zero issues because we're doing a great job of entertaining American families."

Gallagher said he isn't concerned about the possibility of universal ratings or the administration getting involved in the legislation of video game ratings.

"We are very encouraged about all of the meetings we've had," he said. "We've met with the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, he's very pleased with the work we have done. We've had great meetings on the Hill, probably among the best we've had.

"It's very hard to take something off the table completely and say that it can't happen, but I think it's a low likelihood," he said. "And that's for a good reason. The ESRB is doing a great job, people know, they trust the disclosure that's included as part of the packaging of a game."

Gallagher said that increasingly video games are becoming an accepted part of everyday life and culture. He pointed to the success of Grand Theft Auto 4, both financially and critically, as a major turning point for the industry.

"It was reviewed like a movie, as a movie, like a piece of art," he said. "We received accolades for that, that was a big transition for us. That turned out to be a very positive step forward for us."

It also helps, he said, that Obama's family owns a Wii.

"For the first time we have a console in the white house," he said. "We understand the president has a Wii and we're very excited about that. Having a degree of exposure to the technology is very, very positive."

Currently the only way you can lock out the ability to download specific games on the portables is to lock out the ability to download any of them.

That doesn't seem right to the Entertainment Software Rating Board which rates all video games sold in stores in the U.S.

"ESRB ratings empower parents to do their job," said ESRB president Patricia Vance. "Considering the fact that the vast majority of parents are already aware of and regularly using ESRB ratings, Apple's adoption of them for iPhone games seems like a no-brainer. Apple just announced that the parental controls for the new version of the iPhone will block movie and TV content based on their respective ratings. Adding ESRB ratings to the controls they already plan to offer would give parents the ability to exert control over the games their children play as well."

Apple has not yet responded to requests for comment on Vance's statement or ESA president Michael Gallagher's comments on the same issue.