Responding to pressure from a Fox News expose, the Chicago CTA president Ron Huberman has pulled advertising for GTAIV from public transit. This follows a weekend with over two dozen shootings on record. This move isn’t unprecedented in Chicago and is similar to moves by other major cities including Massachusetts; Portland, Oregon and Denver.

GamePolitics has put together an article on this assumed link between violent video game ads and violent crime used as an excuse to censor game ads. GP sums up the situation quite nicely:

The GTA IV transit ads shown by Fox News depict neither violence nor sex. Does the CTA reject ads for R-rated movies? Suggestive or violent television programs?

As I’ve written before, the video game industry needs to assert its First Amendment rights in these cases, which essentially come down to selective censorship by quasi-governmental entities.

Get the facts and opinions on GamePolitics.

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The UK’s British Board of Film Classification has ruled that Grand Theft Auto IV is cleared for release with no additional cuts necessary.

The BBFC played over 5 hours gameplay and 8 hours of cut scenes before giving their approval. The board noted that GTAIV does include mature content including “strong violence, very strong language, very strong sex references and drugs use,” as well as cocaine use, masturbation and (un)healthy doses of blood spray. The game is rated 18.

GTAIV is one of the most anticipated games of the year and expected to be a best seller. It launches April 29 in Europe.

via GamesIndustry.biz

As was alluded to in Stephany’s post this morning, Rockstar will be launching The Rockstar Social Club, a new website that will act as an online leaderboard tracking every action you can think of in compatible Rockstar games, starting of course with Grand Theft Auto IV. After registration opens on April 15, you’ll be able to sign up with your Xbox Live Gamertag and/or PlayStation Network ID, the site will track all sorts of data and present it in a number of ways.

LCPD Police Blotter — A virtual map and tracker of single-player criminal activity logged in Liberty City from the aggregated data of millions of connected players - showing the most dangerous areas of town, most commonly used weapons and more.

The Story Gang — This special single-player leaderboard recognizes players who complete Niko Bellic’s main story arc of Grand Theft Auto IV - The leaderboard ranks players according to the total amount of playing time it’s taken to complete the story, as well as a historical rank by who has completed it first. Members of this club will receive special online widgets and merit badges marking all of their in-game accomplishments.

The 100% Club — Watch to see who will be the first to complete 100% of the game. The first ten people to be identified on the Social Club as reaching 100% will be sent an ultra-rare commemorative ‘key to the city’ to mark their accomplishment. In the future, the 100% Club will then carry a historical leaderboard showing rankings of who has completed 100% of a game in the shortest span of playing hours.

The Hall of Fame — This area will dynamically recognize those singularly elite players who have reached the top of the hill on various statistical leaderboards, and will also contain a personal awards display of special in-game landmarks and successes in Social Club competitions.

The Liberty City Marathon — A ranking of special physical milestones achieved in the game - from the amount of miles walked, driven, or swam - to the number of bullets fired and stunt-jumps jumped. There will be additional special marathon-based competitions in the future from this area as well.

The Rockstar Social Club doesn’t stop there. With special competitions, leaderboards and challenges rolling out regularly in the weeks and months following the game’s release, this is just the beginning of an on-going Liberty City experience and is a small taste of what’s to come from Rockstar Games for GTAIV and beyond…

This sounds really, really cool. I loved going in and checking out the various stats that previous GTA games would track, but now being able to share that information and compare it with others through a website is a major improvement. Sure, chances are that the top-tracked players for distance walked and things of that nature will be people will turn their systems on and leave the game running with the controller running Niko in circles for days on end, but at least you’ll be able to keep tabs on you and your friends’ activity.

Before you go to bed tonight dear readers, you need to log onto XBL or the official GTA IV website for the last trailer for the most anticipated game of 2008.Titled “Good Lord, What Are You Doing?” aka “Everyone’s a Rat” will be up around 10pm tonight, and although we are currently unaware of the content of the trailer, hopefully it will show us some actual gameplay or maybe a glimpse of the elusive multiplayer aspect of GTA IV. Whatever they do decide to show us though, should continue to make our mouths water.

April 29 is only 34 days away, so if you have not pre-ordered the game you will probably miss out on the day of launch as GTA IV will most likely knock Halo 3 off its throne.

Microsoft Game Studios corporate VP Shane Kim has been doing a lot of talking at DICE, which of course means lots of interviews. One such interview was conducted by Wired, with Kim being prodded about how Microsoft foresees itself continuing to fight in Europe, which he acknowledged is a much more key battleground for the Xbox 360 than Japan is.

He didn’t pinpoint any one thing, but instead pointed to a variety of factors – GTAIV’s launch being “owned” by Xbox 360, the Xbox Live Video Marketplace, Rock Band and Guitar Hero – as what would collectively fight Sony.

Okay, so, video marketplace, GTAIV — what are some other ways, when you talk about focusing on Europe. What does that consumer want and how do you do it better?

Something like Scene It was a very important property for us, and in terms of driving that into Europe with local content, because Buzz is popular there. So content is very important, and we’re trying to address some of those things. But we’ve known music has been important in that market in the past, with Singstar’s success, and that’s why it’s so important for us to really make sure that from a consumer perspective, they look at Guitar Hero and Rock Band as the best experiences that they could possibly get are on our platform. So when Rock Band launches in Europe… There’s no one silver bullet. You have to do all of these things and you have to be patient and ply away at it, because it’s going to take time. But we know that it’s an important market that we have to succeed in if we want to win the generation, which is still our aspiration.

Kim also talks about the possibility of motion control making an appearance on 360, as well as Mass Effect exclusivity, the audience for Halo Wars, and how Microsoft is working on a game that rhymes with “Deers of Lore.”

Read the full interview here.