This is one of the funniest video game “controversies” ever.

Long story short: Back in May a game for WiiWare (games you can download directly to your console via the Wii Shop Channel) was announced called “Frat Party Games: Beer Pong.”  The game was given a T (13+) rating, but people felt that wasn’t good enough, since one should (technically) be 21 before drinking, so a bunch of nutjobs went around complaining about the game.  Now the company behind the game, JV Games, has changed the name from “Beer Pong” to “Pong Toss,” and since the reference to alcohol has been removed, the game now has an E for Everyone rating.  Which, of course, still angers the nutjob types.  (Full news story is here.)

I personally think this is all pretty hilarious.  First of all, there’s the fact that the game does not now nor did it ever show beer, people drinking, people passing out or other drunken behavior in anyway – the game just had you throwing ping pong balls into cups for points.

But more importantly, who wants to play a video game based on a drinking game when there’s no drinking involved?

The whole point of drinking games is to drink and get drunk.  Otherwise they’d just be games.  Honestly, have you ever played beer pong just for the fun of throwing ping pong balls into cups?  No.  You play to drink and make other people drink.  I suppose in theory you could use the Wii version as a stand-in if you don’t have access to a long table and some ping pong balls, but there are a million other drinking games you could play with a deck of cards (or while watching a movie, or a TV show, or without any props at all, for that matter) to get a nice buzz on.

And as for the whole “this game will make kids think drinking is cool” argument, let’s be freaking realistic here: Teenagers and college students drink for a lot of reasons as it is; is this video game really going to make a huge impact on the binge drinking scene?  I sort of doubt it.

Besides, if kids do play this game and get good at it at home, they’ll already be pros when they do graduate to the real game.  Then they’ll sink ping pong ball after ping pong ball and make the less prepared people they’re playing against do all the drinking.