Nintendo has required JV Games, publishers of the Frat Party Games, to change both the name and content of their original WiiWare title. This contradicts earlier policy outlined by Reggie Fils-Aime which stated Nintendo would not screen WiiWare titles.

Frat Party Games was originally announced with the subtitle "Beer Pong", and depicts the old college drinking game of throwing ping-pong balls into plastic cups filled with lousy beer. If a ball lands in your opponent's cup, he has to chug it down. Nintendo apparently didn't care much for that.

JV Games co-founder Vince Valenti recalls how they "had a little discussion with Nintendo and there were some angry parties." The two founders were shocked by Nintendo's reaction. As Valenti puts it, his company's use of the word "beer" was "just like you would hear in any movie or on TV."

The version of the game that's actually going to see release will be subtitled "Pong Toss", and the college students depicted in the title will enthusiastically throw ping-pong balls into... empty cups... that disappear.

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KouAidou

Man, there is not a part of this story that isn't completely stupid. I mean, someone made a *Beer Pong video game*? And Nintendo made them *censor the beer*? So they censored it to *empty cups that disappear*?

I refuse to believe this is real. I believe it must be some sort of performance art, perhaps done in tribute to the recently deceased George Carlin.

WoWgamer

thats really stupid. So Nintendo should put a drinking game on Wi iware with no way of knowing what age group is buying it? Sadly people with your abilities are why we have to have a rating system now. I guess you'd be giving GTA to 6 year olds.

Kouban

They should've had them change it to Root Beer Pong, and possibly emblazoned the glasses with the image of the mustachioed bartender from Tapper. That way, the change is slightly less absurd and you wind up with a metajoke!

KouAidou

They should've had them change it to Root Beer Pong

This is the part I don't understand. I mean there are a lot of obvious changes you could make to make it acceptable that are better than hitting a ball into an empty cup.

I mean they could just paint the glasses blue and call it Frothy Water Pong!

JBoogieG

No, see, it was the fault of beer companies not wanting their sweet, delicious brews sullied with dirty ping pong balls.

... honestly, I have no idea. I mean how'd it get green lit in the first place and *then* get poo-poo'd?

Lynxara

@WoWGamer:

You seem to misunderstand how WiiWare is published. At service's launch, Nintendo stated they had no involvement in the publication of the games, they were just letting independent developers upload things to their servers (which would then be rated by the ESRB, anyway). Effectively Nintnedo is not the publisher of any of the third-partyWiiWare titles, no more than they published Animal Soccer or Big Rigs 2. I believe the Wii has parental controls to keep kids from downloading anything, and they couldn't buy Wii Points unless aided and abetted by a parent anyway, so your "FOR THE CHILDREN!" argument is pretty weak and mostly irrelevant.

If Nintendo was going to have a problem with JV Games putting a beer-drinking game on their servers, you think they would've objected at any one of the pre-launch events where JV Games where first showing off the title as "Beer Pong". You'd think they would've talked to JV Games the very first time, in fact. But no, Beer Pong has been an announced game for months, and before now Nintendo seemed to care about it roughly as much as they cared about Conker's Bad Fur Day (which they published). Going back on their word now is bad business ethics, and covering for that with "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" is deplorable.

I can assure you people like me aren't the source of the ESRB. I bought the SNES version of Mortal Kombat, and the ESRB as we know it resulted from Nintendo deciding to try to throw Sega under a Congressional bus for daring to publish a version with optional gore that sold a whole lot better. Then when Congress started criticizing Nintendo for manufacturing stuff like the Zapper, Nintendo got scared and banded together with the rest of the industry to create the ESRB and keep government censorship out of the industry. Even back then, monitoring content wasn't "FOR THE CHILDREN!", it was just about Nintendo's ill-advised greed.

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