Penny Arcade teams with ESRB

The creators of Penny Arcade are teaming up with the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to promote the industry-standard game-ratings system, according to a news post on the Web comics' site. The campaign will involve a series of ads to appear in gaming magazines and on Web sites, and will feature an array of characters designed to represent each of the ESRB ratings. "They wanted a campaign that would communicate to gamers why the ESRB is important even if they don't think it directly affects them," Penny Arcade artist Mike Krahulik said in the post. As for why he and writer Jerry Holkins agreed to the project in the first place, Krahulik said the pair's status as fathers had a part in it, and "we much prefer the ESRB to government regulation and let's all be honest here, that's the alternative."