The Video Game Industry's Strategy Guide

In case you're wondering what kind of big fish we're talking about, Bray notes that Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood are some of the top luminaries who lent their distinctive voices to the game world.

Best Buy adopted a tough new policy to restrict sales of violent and sexually explicit video games to people under 21 years of age. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the retailer will send mystery shoppers to its 679 stores nationwide to make sure that cashiers ask for identification on games that Lowenstein's association has rated "M" for "Mature."

The policy persuaded Christian Brothers Investment Services Inc., a conservative Catholic group that claims to manage nearly $4 billion in investments, to withdraw a shareholder resolution to persuade the Richfield, Minn.-based company to publicly outline its stance.

Here's more from the St. Paul Pioneer-Press: "Best Buy spokeswoman Susan Busch said the timing of the posting was 'a coincidence,'' noting her firm puts its video game policy in place last year but Christian Brothers wasn't aware of that until recently. Best Buy had objected to the Securities and Exchange Commission about Christian Brother's proposed resolution, contending it interfered with the company's regular business operations."

Poker Trumps AP Exams

I took three Advanced Placement exams in high school. It cost my folks $180, but saved us some $10,000 or more when I did well enough to place out of several core college classes and save them a semester's worth of tuition.

Of course, I could have learned to play poker for free and achieved the same goal: Absolutepoker.com, an online gaming company based in Toronto and San Jose, Costa Rica, will pay a semester's tuition to whoever wins its college Internet poker tournament. The company hasn't put a limit on how much it will pay, marketing chief Garin Gustafson told me earlier this week, but he said that the offer does not cover room and board, textbooks or ancillaries.

The tournament, which is scheduled for May 26, has already lured 4,000 people. Gustafson said that it will not involve real money. This is significant considering that online gambling in the United States is technically illegal. (It depends on whom you ask, but we'll take the government's word for it. Better safe than sorry.) Nevertheless, the industry rakes in millions of dollars from American players, and is embarking on a hefty marketing campaign despite the legal questions that remain. I was tempted to ask whether hooking kids on a potentially illegal activity as part of helping one of them pay for college is a smart idea, but if you think poker is the most dangerous activity at the nation's universities, you need to go back to school.

The Long Road to Internet 911

It took a long time in coming, but the path to local 911 service for Internet phone customers must take no longer than 120 days, the Federal Communications Commission ruled yesterday. I have written several times about incidents in Houston and Hartford, Conn., involving 911 calls made on unequipped Internet phones served by Vonage Holdings Inc. that prompted two state lawsuits.

Here, from the West Volusia County edition of the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal, is the most tragic tale of all: "Cheryl and Joseph Waller did not want to tell strangers about the worst day of their lives. But they did. ... The Deltona couple told federal officials in Washington, D.C., on Thursday about the day their 3-month-old daughter Julia died, when their Internet phone service could not reach 911 after the baby stopped breathing."

Waller, the Associated Press reported, "told the commissioners before their vote that '120 days is seven days longer than my daughter lived.' Julia Waller 'died at 113 days old because I can't reach an operator,' she said."

The News-Journal also offered a reaction from Vonage: "Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schulz said the company had no idea their Volusia County customers' calls were going to a non-emergency line and they have recently changed the service to take advantage of the Sheriff's Office Internet line. 'Our hearts bleed for the Wallers,' Schulz said. 'Our company's No. 1 priority is to make sure something like this does not happen again.'"

Vonage and other Internet phone companies have made deals with several of the nation's largest phone companies to provide local 911 service. The Wall Street Journal noted that the FCC's action, meanwhile, marked an abrupt reversal of the commission's normally hands-off approach to regulating the hot new technology.

Finally, News.com reported that Internet phone companies that assign numbers that aren't based on where subscribers actually live might run into trouble complying with the FCC's ruling.

Hot, Fiery Passion at $3.99/Minute

The New York Fire Department's emergency hotline phone number will raise your temperature, all right. The New York Daily News reported that the phone number "was mistakenly canceled by bungling bureaucrats -- and the easy-to-remember digits are now in the hands of a phone sex company."

"In April, a Philadelphia-based company, PrimeTel, bought the number," the Daily News reported, and boy, does it have a track record: "The company has previously grabbed numbers from the Phoenix-based Mexican Tourism Bureau and a Tulsa special-education group, according to a Philadelphia magazine report in January."