Australia Has Banned Over 200 Games in Four Months

[Nazulu]

For Fuck Sake! Fuck our government! Fuck their dark stone age ideas! Selfish bastards pushing their own damn agenda like the corrupt pricks they are! I thought we were actually getting somewhere for once, but we're still not advance Australia.

We had the bloody Puppetry of the Penis show advertised everywhere, movies like Saw, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and the Human Centipede are well known, plus our own shows like Fat Pizza and The Chasers which sometimes were really offensive are still available, and other great artists like Frank Zappa and George Carlin who really pushed the bar, and they still look down on games even though they have no bloody proof of anything to justify these bullshit practices!?

I Think I Found Our New National Anthem.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k9vs4H18dH0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

That will be hard to sing, but it's definitely suitable :-D

If this was a Disney film they would get a song like this:

Jeez I really spat it. Need to remember not to post anything while drunk.

 

[smithy_2045]

This is an incredibly misleading article. See https://mesuckatgames.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/misleading-titles/ for explanation.

 

[RicoADF]

Illegal things like carjacking and shooting people, GTA V style?

Which GTA does not ENCOURAGE, it allows it but it does not reward and say good work. If anything one could argue you get punished by police coming after you. There's a difference between allowing an action and encouraging it. Also GTA has artistic merit, it is depicting the real world and thus murder, rape, drugs etc are appropriate to have. Context is the key here.

Also, media that encourages illegal activity is not protected under free speech even in the U.S. But I imagine you and I have very different concepts of what, "encourages illegal behavior" actually means. GTA does not encourage any illegal behavior, since pixels doing things to pixels is all it encourages and pixels don't need to be protected. If you want to claim that a specific game/movies/book encourages illegal activity, you'd need to show that the game/movie/book was actually encouraging people to go out and do something in the real world. For instance, printing a pamphlet and spreading it around directly telling people to burn people of other religions to death in the street is actually encouraging illegal activity. Making/distributing even the most gore-infused, offensive portrayal of burning people to death in a game is not the same as encouraging someone to do it in real life.

I did not say GTA encouraged illegal behavior, as stated above I don't have any issues with GTA and neither does Australian classification board which is why it is sold here as R18+. Please explain how you connected my statement to GTA, a game that is sold and I myself play.

I'm glad that in practice it doesn't tend to unfairly restrict your ability to purchase games, but it's still unexpected to me, naively, as an outsider.

Well as staged by Gorrath even the US does ban games/movies etc when it's considered to be encouraging bad behavior, I guess where that goal post stands and what is considered as such may differ from country to country.

Having been exposed to it for quite some time, my reaction is different. I can see where you're coming from with this, however. One of my first bits of exposure to Australian politics was a bunch of Australians screaming about how the Muslims were going to take over their country, too. I was already familiar with the UK's issue with Muslims and brown people, but Australia is almost literally the opposite side of the world, I wasn't quite as exposed. Thanks, Obama internet!

Considering I first became aware of this at at time where the US was trying to censor movies, music, and games, it didn't outright shock me that another country would.

Eh in all countries you get those that are scared x will take over y, overall it doesn't appear that such a concern is a big issue here but there are some that are worried as with everything. It's more about the boat people constantly coming, people smugglers, that has the attention of the public here but that's another topic. I would be happy to discuss further in another topic or via PM

Apologies if you've already answered this, but what constitutes encouragement in your eyes? The example I saw given was GTA, and I'm curious as to whether this is encouragement or not. I guess the distinction for me is that I spend a lot of time playing games where I do illegal things, but I don't feel encouraged to do them.

I didn't previously but in this post I believe I have, I don't consider a game allowing something as encouragement, nor do I consider a game that's trying to replicate the real world having bad things as being something needing to be banned (eg: GTA should not be banned and it has not, neither has it been censored). Such a game would be one which was all about doing something bad and then depicting the results of your actions as being beneficial. Eg: A game where your a drug dealer and your able to easily make lots of money without any police intervention and encouraging it as a good thing to do. Which is different than GTA which depicts drugs and drug dealers, but doesn't show them nor the world their in as particularly good.

That's how I see it anyway

This is an incredibly misleading article. See https://mesuckatgames.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/misleading-titles/ for explanation.

I kind of agree, the title is technically correct but it is very sensationalist and doesn't depict the news correctly nor give correct context.

 

[lunavixen]

With the Abbott government in charge, this is sad, but not surprising. Some of these bans are justified, but these dipsticks seem to forget that the average gamer is about 30 years old.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

They aren't equivalent, that's exactly my point. What's funny about it is that the attitudes towards the same kind of game can vary so much depending upon what context it appears in.

I'm confused. Your original comment appears to be trying to point out some sort of difference as though it's a double standard.

Well then you misinterpreted me, or I didn't make myself clear enough. I found it amusing that since no one knew exactly what games had been banned, they were acting like it was a complete travesty.

Whereas if the article title was "Steam culls 200 games from library" with no information about what games they were, there would probably be many people saying "about time, needs some quality control".

But when it's demonstrated to not be equivolent, you say, basically, "that's my point." What is your point?

That people are really touchy about censorship but not quality control?

Speaking as an American who should probably keep their nose out of Aussie politics but hell everybody's doing it, that seems like a dumb system when it comes to determining what can and can't be sold.

Well I agree with you, it is a dumb system. I don't think it's worth them refusing classification, particularly not when it's backed by the stupid claim of 'but interactivity is more addictive!'.

The thing is though, I really don't care enough about 99% of those games to think it's a serious problem. I also tend to get frustrated by the discourse on this because at least now we can buy some games that were previously refused classification because there was no 18+ category. Ten years ago, they were banning games we wanted to play. Now they're (mostly) banning games no one cares about. Let's acknowledge that as an improvement rather than raging all the time. We've got bigger problems anyway.

 

[Something Amyss]

The thing is though, I really don't care enough about 99% of those games to think it's a serious problem.

Yeah, but I don't really see a lot of outrage here. Maybe it's because I don't post so much, but this thread is only 3 pages long at this point, contains a fair amount of actual discourse and such, and then some jokes. There's some "that's dumb" comments, but I don't see many people taking this as a serious problem.

Compare and contrast when Australia totally banned GTA V (or that's the impression you'd get from the coverage/reaction), or the decision of Valve(temporary) and GOG (far as I know, permanent) to not stock Hatred, and this doesn't seem disproportionate or unreasonable. Yeah, a few people would flip out on principle, but most don't seem to be. Maybe it's different in other parts of the forum, or even in Australia, though I would expect Australians to be the ones least likely to flip out here.

I don't care about these games, either. I really only got sucked into posting in this thread because I wasn't sure if Dynast Brass was serious or not, and it turns out he was unaware of Australia's history with games. Which, you know, is fair enough. Otherwise, I probably would have just shrugged, said "that's dumb," and moved on. Because it's not worth a major stand, but I don't like it, either.

I also tend to get frustrated by the discourse on this because at least now we can buy some games that were previously refused classification because there was no 18+ category. Ten years ago, they were banning games we wanted to play. Now they're (mostly) banning games no one cares about. Let's acknowledge that as an improvement rather than raging all the time. We've got bigger problems anyway.

Which was pretty much my response to DB. And also to a couple other people, like when FalloutJack warned that this coul have been 'Murrica had people listened to Jack Thompson. Because I do think it's a step in the right direction, and I expect even with an improved system there to be hiccups.

There are other points of annoyance for me, too. The fact that people have rushed out and made controversy without verification was one that was annoying of late, both specific to this and not. There's a double standard on this site when it comes to app store policing, too. The Confederate flag thing was kind of funny, seeing people who had previously been all free market about censorship suddenly upset about the KKK's flag being pulled (selectively, from the looks of it), like Nazi games before them. But mostly, those are apples to apples examples, which I think are reasonable. The difference between censorship and quality control usually seems to be whether or not the person in question likes the games, which troubles me with all the support for KKK and Nazi icons, because people dont'seem to go out of their way to defend other things they hate.

And I think that's why there's not much outrage on here. [game I like] isn't being refused certification for the most part.

But maybe you are legitimately seeing a different reaction, and I can't say you're not because I don't know.

 

[ZerokoRival]

So Australia joins a coalition of other countries under a united Age Rating banner and suddenly over 200 games get refused classification where as most of those other countries most likely allow the majority of them? Well, should have expected overkill from the country that tried to ban GTA multiple times.

 

[Grabehn]

What is this "Adults with the capability of making choices for themselves" thing you speak of? NAaaaah, that's not a thing, ban them, BAN THEM ALL I SAY!

 

[Gorrath]

The point of the ratings are informational; they aren't required by law to be enforced because that would be a violation of freedom of speech under the American constitution. It's not just that they don't bother making laws for these ratings, it's that they can't without a constitutional amendment. It is left to the industry because the government can't practically intervene and the industry does have a vested interest in applying the ratings, which is exactly why they do.

The ruling on Brown v EMA was basically that California's law was too broad, not that games couldn't be restricted. Interestingly, this court ruling protects games on the expilicit grounds that they contain the same kind of social elements of other public works. Something to remember the next time someone wants to complain about criticism.

Games can be restricted but only in the same way as other artistic media, which means the government cannot enforce a ratings system that forces a vendor to restrict sales of art based on content unless said content renders that media pornographic. A ratings system like the ESRB is an industry system precisely because the government cannot enforce a similar system. They've had this go-around with movies, theaters and the now mostly-extinct video stores in the past. California's law was too broad because it failed to recognize games were protected free speech.

 

[Gorrath]

As for Hotline Miami 2 being the only decent one, I'd probably agree but from an art philosophy perspective, it is up to each member of the audience to find their own value in a piece, not be beholden to what someone else thinks is garbage.

No, they're beholden to what someone else thinks is not worthy of classification, which in this case coincidentally happens to be what a number of people think is garbage.

That's from a legal perspective, not an art philosophy one. Saying that it's okay to ban games because some number of people thinks they are garbage flies in the face of art philosophy, where an audience finds its own meaning in any piece. Garbage to one person might have great meaning to another and thus is poor grounds for a de facto ban. From a legal perspective the ratings board can refuse classification to My Little Pony Sing Along Game if they want, citing that they think its pornographic. No one is beholden to agree with them, which is why banning games because they're "garbage" or any similar assertion is tosh. Tosh I say! But as I mentioned, this is a philosophical argument on my part, I respect the right of the Aussies to govern themselves how they like.

The strident reactions here are understandable; if someone tried to do this in the U.S., I would myself be blowing my top.

See, I don't want to imply that you're wrong to uphold a principle you clearly believe in regarding censorship. I think that's important.

What I find amusing is that a number of people reacted as though 220 games Australians actually have an interest in playing were banned. If you believe nothing should ever be censored, that's fine. But the number is not as significant as some are making it out to be. Australia is just another country with a ratings system that includes the option to refuse classification, and the advent of bedroom programming means they now have to rate so much more content than they otherwise would. Proportionally it's not an unreasonable amount, and only one game of merit or note has been refused classification (which is still BS, btw).

Captcha: slippery slope
Stay out of this, Captcha.

I take no issues with the number. Indeed if the U.S. government tried to ban even a single game I'd be rattling the sabers. I think you're quite right in pointing out that, due to a need for expedience, the ratings board has to refuse classification for a whole slate of games. Choosing to refuse classification for a bunch of, as you put it, bedroom games that focus on smoking weed is hardly an egregious offence given the circumstances.

I'd not argue that the number is the problem but the underlying philosophy is. I am ever thankful that the first amendment is interpreted as it is, giving almost maximal freedom of expression. This way, even if only a handful of people find personal value in playing weed smoking simulator, they are free to do it without government intervention and despite the fact that untold numbers would probably play the game and call it crap. Hope that clarifies my meaning, and cheers to you!

Edit: Mad fixing of quote tags

 

[Gorrath]

Also, media that encourages illegal activity is not protected under free speech even in the U.S. But I imagine you and I have very different concepts of what, "encourages illegal behavior" actually means. GTA does not encourage any illegal behavior, since pixels doing things to pixels is all it encourages and pixels don't need to be protected. If you want to claim that a specific game/movies/book encourages illegal activity, you'd need to show that the game/movie/book was actually encouraging people to go out and do something in the real world. For instance, printing a pamphlet and spreading it around directly telling people to burn people of other religions to death in the street is actually encouraging illegal activity. Making/distributing even the most gore-infused, offensive portrayal of burning people to death in a game is not the same as encouraging someone to do it in real life.

I did not say GTA encouraged illegal behavior, as stated above I don't have any issues with GTA and neither does Australian classification board which is why it is sold here as R18+. Please explain how you connected my statement to GTA, a game that is sold and I myself play.

I connected it to GTA because I think GTA does precisely what you say it does not; GTA encourages the player to do car-jackings, steal, shoot people, ect. within the context of the game. GTA very much glamorizes the world of crime and criminal activity. Some would interpret this glamorization as "encouraging illegal activity." I do not think there has ever been a game produced that would meet the criteria of "encouraging illegal activity." Even if a game rewarded the player for getting high and beating hookers to death through explicit praise it would not meet that criteria. The only way it could is if the game was structured in such a way as to encourage people to stop playing, go outside and do something illegal. I'm not even sure how you could make a game that does that. GTA is simply the go-to example of a game that people accuse of encouraging illegal behavior. If you don't like that example, do you have another you think does encourage illegal behavior? Certainly not Hotline Miami 2, which was refused classification.

Edit: I thought of how a game could be structured to meet this criteria. If you had a game that was actually programmed to reward you for using the game to hack into people's real personal data and do illegal things with it. It's the only practical idea I can come up with though and I'm not aware such a game exists.

 

[Jake Martinez]

With the Abbott government in charge, this is sad, but not surprising. Some of these bans are justified, but these dipsticks seem to forget that the average gamer is about 30 years old.

I know that instinctively people want to blame the "Conservatives" for everything relating to censorship, but in this particular case the main culprit is a guy named Michael Atkinson who was the Attorney General for South Australia and a Labor party member. He actively blocked with his veto several attempts to introduce an R18+ classification for video games, even to the point of using his position to block an official poll/canvassing of the Australian public about if they should have an R18+ rating up until his retirement from his position.

Atkinson is also the guy that introduced a law into Parliment that made it illegal for people to post commentary online about public elections without providing their real name and address. Yes, literally he didn't want you commenting on a news article unless you publicly stated your full name and address.

Interesting side note: Prior to his career in politics, Atkinson was a journalist.

Maybe if this whole politics thing doesn't pan out for him he can go work at Polygon or Kotaku or some other place that hates free speech (when other people do it) and video games in general.

EDIT:

I should probably add this, just to make my point clearer.

I know Atkinson isn't around in this capacity any more, but the years that he was in charge of the classification board have definitely left their mark. Australia is so far behind other countries because he spent a massive amount of time actively blocking any progress. Furthermore, his opinion on such matters became the dominant opinion of the classification board as well and that's going to take a lot of time to reverse. It's actually kind of impressive in a way that a single guy can stop an entire nation from joining the 21st century in this regard, but kind of unfortunate for those of us who live here.

 

[Somekindofgold]

THIS IS WHY PIRACY IS SO PREVALENT IN THIS GOD AWFUL COUNTRY.

Jesus fucking christ this isnt a hard train of thought to follow. You ban games, we pirate them. The answer to this problem isnt to pass insane anti piracy laws, its to stop banning god damn games.

The worst part about this is that the two major parties in Australia are just two sides of the same coin, and aside from a few surface level issues agree on almost all the same shit.

And yes, the bipartisan support of said anti piracy laws still pisses me off.

 

[Raioken18]

As an Australian I do think that this country tends to be very afraid of sexualized women in certain types of media.

We also now have a R18 rating for games... however it appears to just be a higher rating for violent content with sexual content still banned and slight sexual content being moved to the higher ratings bracket.

I think it is hilarious that Fable Anniversary is rated R-18 here, or most games in the Atelier series.

The thing is... WHY? It doesn't appear to be pressure from religious groups, it actually appears to be a government driven decision :/ ???