September 13^th, 2005 (5:45pm) - The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has sent out e-mail notifications to video game publishers and developers asking them to audit the games they’ve released in the past year in search of hidden in-game content that may possibly affect the ESRB ratings of the games.

According to the e-mail, publishers have always been required to disclose the inclusion of hidden content in the form of Easter eggs and unlockable through cheat codes and various cheat devices. After the aftermath of the "Hot Coffee" scandal, the ESRB is seemingly enforcing its policies more than ever, most likely to get attention whores such as Jack Thompson off their back.

"Any pertinent content shipped on the game disc that may be relevant to a rating must be disclosed to ESRB, even if it is not intended to ever be accessed during gameplay," reads the e-mail. "If a publisher wishes to ’edit out’ pertinent content from a final product, it must remove the content from the disc altogether. If that is not feasible, the pertinent content must be disclosed to the ESRB during the rating process so it can be taken into account."

The ESRB’s Board of Directors have approved a full scale review of all games released by current publishers since 2004. This full scale review will require publishers to re-examine their back catalog of games and they have until January 9th to disclose their findings to the ESRB. It is possible that the ESRB may issue new ratings to certain titles if any new content found requires the change.

"If you fail to notify us of previously undisclosed, non-playable, pertinent content, and such content becomes playable through a subsequent authorized or unauthorized release of code to unlock it, punitive in addition to corrective actions may result," the email warns.