Electronic Arts is teaming up with the strangely popular self-help books “For Dummies,” makers of such classic literature as “Sex For Dummies” and “Catholicism For Dummies” to create games for dummies.

That’s right. Now you can get all of the fun of a self-help book in a video game. Hit the jump for details. (Here’s a freebie for dummies: press the “Read more” button)

Starting with Poker for Dummies, EA will be bringing a series of games to the PC and DS to teach players how to do things like Sudoku puzzles, cross word puzzles and solitaire.

The games will be available for retail and direct download via pogo.com for $19.99, with Poker available now and others to follow.

Now, I understand that some of these books are legitimate. Guitar for Dummies? Sounds helpful. Accounting for Dummies? Boring, but could be useful for doing taxes or something. But charging people $20 to teach them how to play poker? You could learn that online for free. I guess they’re called “for dummies” for a reason.

The strangest part is that the Poker game is rated “T for Teen.” Call me a dummy, but I have no idea how a poker game gets a T rating. Is there an option to shoot the guy across the table if he’s cheating? Or is strip poker included as well? Because if there were nudity involved, I could see sales rising up to maybe three or four units sold.

Tags: EA, EA for Dummies, for Dummies

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1 Comment » greeneggsnsam on August 7, 2008 12:09 pm It’s probably T for Teen because of the gambling involved. SEGA casino DS is rated 18+ only in the UK, because of the gambling. RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.