PSVratings shuts down

PSVratings, a media rating system promoted as an alternative to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, quietly shut down several months ago, according to a report on Game Politics. The site quotes PSV CEO David Kinney as saying that the company laid off all employees and suspended operations in May. Kinney also told the site he was looking to recapitalize and get the company back on its feet.

Game Politics also cites "a source familiar with PSV" as indicating that the company's shuttering came in the wake of a Securities and Exchange Commission fraud investigation into Veritasiti, a company with ties to PSV. There is no word on what PSV has to do with the investigation, but Kinney did acknowledge it to say that he is cooperating with the authorities.

PSVratings billed itself as an independent, objective rating system. It used a stoplight system to rate the amount of profanity, sex, and violence in different types of media. For example, the movie Jaws received a yellow light for profanity, a green light for sex, and a red light for violence, while Gangs of New York received red lights for all three categories.