Earlier today, The Washington Post ran a story about how a little girl bought $1,400 worth of smurfberries in Smurfs’ Village. This was not the first time the game has gotten bad press over the simpleness of its microtransaction system. Usually, limiting the number of steps it takes for a customer to purchase an item will result in greater sales. However in the case of games such as Smurfs’ Village and Tap Zoo, light restrictions are precisely the problem.

The video games industry has come under fire many times for offering content not appropriate for children. Even though all games come with a clear rating, an age range and warnings about their content courtesy of the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board), critics are quick to point out any kind of mature content.

Now, according to a recent study, the video games industry might not be the worst offender.

A study was conducted by the US Federal Trade Commission that employed underage Americans who tried to buy either a music CD, a movie or a video game from various stores. All the items had content clearly marked as unsuitable for children: “Explicit Lyrics” on the CDs, an “R” rating for the movies and a “Mature” rating on the video games.

Once again we find the subject being our most love-to-hate video game retail giant, GameStop, at the center of another consumer foul. This time the illegal kind.

Kotaku took it upon themselves to claim what thousands of consumers have already claimed, that selling employee “checked out” games as new is illegal. However, Kotaku, rather than whine on a forum, point blank asked the Federal Trade Commission where the legality of this practice stood among the FTC’s rules and guidelines.

How did the FTC respond? How did you think they were going to respond? With a generic “no comment” statement. And who could blame them? What you are asking the FTC to comment on is something of conjecture. Yes, we consumers know that certain GameStop retail stores do have employees that “check out” un-played games but to make a case of this you have to have physical evidence that such an action took place.

East coast ad house EyeballNYC raised the hackles of Jack Thompson this month (August 2007) with its eerily accurate commercial for Bioshock, Irrational Games’ autumn darling and the subject of much pre-release tittering. The game comes out today (August 21, 2007) and is expected to sell more copies than you can shake a genetically enhanced stick at.

Thompson detailed his grievances in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission…