Beer Pong Wii Game Stirs Drinking Controversy, Renamed Pong Toss

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Amidst a flurry of controversy regarding its WiiWare title Beer Pong, developer JV Games has renamed the forthcoming downloading effort to Pong Toss.

Based on the age-old college drinking game, Beer Pong (real-life edition pictured left) tasks players with bouncing a ping-pong ball into a cup filled with beer, forcing their opponents to drink the alcoholic beverage.

Following the game's rating of "T for Teen" by the ESRB, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the label was "absolutely inappropriate" and promoted underage drinking.

Blumenthal further accused the ESRB of being "under the influence" for declaring that "frat party video drinking games [were] suitable for minors." After the title was renamed Pong Toss, it was relabeled by the ESRB with an "E for Everyone" rating.

"Since we never had any drinking in the game, we elected to change the name from 'Beer Pong' to 'Pong Toss' to better reflect it's [sic] true contents and cater to a larger audience," JV Games VP Jag Jaeger explained on the Frat Party Games blog.

Said to be the first in JV Games' Frat Party Games series, Pong Toss missed its projected June launch and is now expected later this summer for around $9.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    July 8, 2008 1:44 PM

    sounds like trouble is brewing

    • reply
      July 8, 2008 2:18 PM

      You just made my day, sir.

    • reply
      July 8, 2008 2:21 PM

      that wasn't the yeast bit funny

      • reply
        July 8, 2008 2:34 PM

        It sounds like he's got too big of a head for his own good.

    • reply
      July 8, 2008 3:49 PM

      thank god the sunglasses meme hasn't made it to frontpage comments yet, cause i expected one D:

      but that was funny!

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