Australia's Rau: Reappraise These Games' Ratings

Karloff

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Australia's Rau: Reappraise These Games' Ratings



John Rau has called for 12 games to be examined, including The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct.

South Australia's Attorney General John Rau has already gone on record saying that the new classification rules are a bit too soft on games [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/128000-Australian-Government-Scrutinizes-Videogames-Classification-Rules], potentially exposing kids to violent or sexual content. Now Rau has his wish. Twelve titles are to be reappraised, including Killer Is Dead, Alien Rage, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist, Deadly Premonition The Director's Cut, Company of Heroes 2, God Mode, Borderlands 2 Add-On Content Pack, Fuse, Deadpool, The Walking Dead, Gears of War: Judgement, and The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. The reviews will take place later this month and in December, as the Classification Review Board decides the games' fate.

"The review is an unwarranted and costly exercise to satisfy a vocal yet unrepresentative minority," complains Ron Curry, CEO of The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association. Curry points out that not a single complaint has been made about any of the titles' content; this is an exercise instigated by Rau himself. While Rau's complaint that the titles under scrutiny received M ratings from the ESRB and 18 from PEGI while receiving a lower rating from Australia has some validity, Curry points out that both ESRB and PEGI were established by the games industry, to industry standards, while the Australian version was established by the Australian government.

"In fact, Australia is one of the few developed nations to have classification guidelines determined by Government," Curry says. Comparison to Europe or the United States may be out of place, he thinks, but take a look at New Zealand, which has a system much the same as Australia's; all the titles Rau complains of got a very comparable rating, often R16, or even R13 in the case of Company of Heroes 2. Curry estimates the total cost of the review - at $28,000 per decision - to be $336,000, a fairly hefty bill, particularly given that the whole exercise is a whim of Rau's.

Sources: IGEA response [http://www.classification.gov.au/Public/Resources/Documents/2013%20media%20releases/CRB_release_announcingthereviewofMultiplecomputergames.pdf]


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Erttheking

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Why is it I get the feeling that Australian gamers hate this guy's guts.
 

snekadid

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My question is, why doesn't Rau pay for the reviews since he is the only one complaining about them? I mean it isn't like they weren't already reviewed.... they were. If they don't fall under his own particular standards then he should be the one footing the bill, especially if he truly believes in his own cause.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

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As a kiwi I would like to take to opportunity to point and laugh at the broken Australian censorship process.

And for those of you who are intrested only Deadpool, Gears of War: Judgement, and The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct recieved R18 in New Zealand. All the others got a R16 rating except for COH2 which was R13.
 

tangoprime

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Wow... among all the other things wrong with this guy, he wants to reappraise Company of Heroes 2? A historic RTS? Really? Is is next crusade to save children from learning the violence of human existence by reappraising Encyclopedia Britannica and all early-mid 20th century history books for mentioning that whole World Wars business and showing some pictures of bombed out cities? You know... because The Children.
 

RhombusHatesYou

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You know, while I'm rolling my eyes at Rau's unilateralism and wasting of taxpayers' money, I don't know what I'd do if South Australia didn't have an Attorney-General who wasan't a complete waste of skin. He's an improvement over Atkinson but that's like saying skin cancer's an improvement over esophogal cancer.
 

RhombusHatesYou

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Karloff said:
Australia's Attorney General John Rau
Fact Check on Aisle Seventeen!

Rau is the AG of the state of South Australia. He's not the Federal AG. That would be Senator George Brandis.

Try that Google thing next time.
 

RhombusHatesYou

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RT said:
Poor Australian gamers. Having this chucklefuck in charge of deciding what they are and aren't going to play is awful.
He's not in charge. He's the Attorney General of one state... and not even the worst AG that state has had. His predecessor was the widely hated and hateworthy Michael Atkinson.
 

laggyteabag

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So the point of implementing the R18 system was what exactly?
 

ciancon

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So someone gets paid $336,000 to review 12 games (most of them pretty damn good). Lucky bastard/*****!
 

RhombusHatesYou

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Laggyteabag said:
So the point of implementing the R18 system was what exactly?
Ah, but this is John Rau. He supported R18+ insofar as he wanted to get rid of the MA15+ rating and shovel all the MA15+ games into R18+. He didn't actually want games that would require an actual R18+ rating to be available. Does that make sense? No, it doesn't.

On the other hand, if South Australia had a state AG who wasn't a massive bellend it would be a sign of the end times. Or that my experimental time machine catapulted me back to the 80s (the last time SA had an AG who wasn't a complete waste of skin... even if he did have a nervous breakdown and went for a stroll all naked).
 

RhombusHatesYou

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ciancon said:
So someone gets paid $336,000 to review 12 games (most of them pretty damn good). Lucky bastard/*****!
Yes but part of the hiring process for the Australian Classification Board is that you must pass a psych evaluation showing that you hate fun in all it's forms.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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This is laughable for so many reasons, not in the least because any kid who has a weekend job and a paypal account can get whatever they want through Steam.

Or better yet, even if the game was 18+, the parents would probably still buy it for them. And then complain about it when they discover graphic content and demand the game be banned outright.

I know it's popular whenever one of these topics crops up to start sneering at Australia for being the land of the puritans, but really that has nothing to do with it. It's more like the land of the lazy parents believing that everyone else is responsible for their child's upbringing, and an obliging swag of politicians who pander to these morons for votes.
 

truckspond

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Laggyteabag said:
So the point of implementing the R18 system was what exactly?
So that they could move the MA15+ rating to R18+

We still get RC (Refused Classification) material that other countries will gladly give the R18+ rating and allow. If I ever want an RC game I will just get it from one of the countries that allows it (They encourage "grey importing" to get around the Australia tax which is a good thing)
 

Helscreama

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Just so everyone is aware, I'd say none of us Australian gamers are surprised that this is happening. If anything, we've been waiting.