On the Left 4 Dead Ban

The Rogue Wolf

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As others have said, this all falls at the feet of one man- Michael Atkinson. The important thing to remember is that he is a politician- in other words, a servant of the people. The only way this stupidity is going to stop is for voting-age Austrailians to either get him voted out of office, or push for legislation to make his stonewalling meaningless.

The funny thing about this Internet doohickey is that it allows for people to organize and plan so very easily....
 

Wyes

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Aug 1, 2009
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Emilie Diabolica said:
dear australians,
please. PLEASE could we organise a protest or something?
we can't just sit on our asses watching as they slowly cut off our freedoms...
D:

gah, i'm gonna go live on the moon, dammit.
The problem is there has already been extensive efforts made to sway the opinion of Michael Atkinson, but he is stubbornly refusing to change his position, and all his counter-arguments are utterly moronic (apparently, it's harder to monitor games in the home than it is to monitor movies. Do you see the flaw in his logic here?).
 

the1ultimate

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Wow, those are lame reasons that the ACB put forward, and they seem a lot like reaching for excuses. Like someone ordered the whole board to find reasons because of their personal prejudices.

If the government keeps moving in this direction, Yahzee you should just take it down. Destroy it.
I know you can do it, you once got two supervillans to dress up in women's clothes for your entertainment.
 

Wyes

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the1ultimate said:
Wow, those are lame reasons that the ACB put forward, and they seem a lot like reaching for excuses. Like someone ordered the whole board to find reasons because of their personal prejudices.

If the government keeps moving in this direction, Yahzee you should just take it down. Destroy it.
I know you can do it, you once got two supervillans to dress up in women's clothes for your entertainment.
As someone already pointed out, the ACB isn't at fault, it's the one guy... which now that I think about it, probably makes Yahtzee's job even easier.
 

SniperWolf427

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NewClassic said:
I can't help but feel like this entire article is like walking into a park, and screaming bloody murder at the grass and trees for having the audacity for being grass and trees. The simple fact of the matter is the ACB is doing it's job. They're paid to do this, and they are working while they're at it. They have to watch the dirty movies, have to play the violent games, and are paid to do nothing other than give the game a classification. For the American readers in the audience, this article is the equivalent of attacking the ESRB for giving a game an M-rating.

It's not the ACB's fault that they have refuse classification because there's no classification this game falls under. The office in charge of classification, the Attorney-General's Department of Australia, is the body that is almost exclusively at fault here. The irony though, is that the department is primarily for the creation of an R18+ classification. However, since the department requires a unanimous vote, there is a single opponent to the classification. An attorney-general named Michael Atkinson.[footnote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Film_and_Literature_Classification_(Australia)#Classification_of_video_games[/footnote]

So, instead of harboring ill-will toward the ACB, it would work more effective to appeal to Mr. Atkinson [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.144722.3256690] to change the ruling. As it stands, he's the only thing between the ACB and a full set of classifications for Video Game media.

And the saddest part is, I severely doubt anyone is going to read this.
Sorry to disagree with you here New Classic, but it seems as if you're doing the very same thing you accuse these people of doing. If something affects a person in a negative fashion, they are going to ***** about it until they die. If a tow truck driver happens to tow your car, are you going to say "That's fair. It is his job after all."? Hell no. You're going to scream at him, even if it isn't his fault for having to tow you.

I believe it is fair that Australians are upset about this, seeing as this does seem a tad unreasonable. There are already safety measures put in to stop these games from "Corrupting the children". This is just overkill.
 

IceStar100

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Emilie Diabolica said:
IceStar100 said:
Emilie Diabolica said:
dear australians,
please. PLEASE could we organise a protest or something?
we can't just sit on our asses watching as they slowly cut off our freedoms...
D:

gah, i'm gonna go live on the moon, dammit.
Can I come?
woot!
that makes two people :D
You bring the rocket and the fuel. I'll bring the road trip stuff like O2 and terriforming kits.
 

Nova5

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I wonder if Oz gamers will be able to purchase it from the U.S. and still play it...
 

rayen020

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Well we don't have a ban in rural texas perse... but there is an old lady that for some reason works in the technology department of walmart and looks at me with disdain every time i buy an M rated game or a R rated movie. Sometimes she sniffs or on the rare occasoin it's something really bad like sin city or assasin's creed she'll say something. usually it's the parent line of "Don't you do anything you see in this." well since zombies don't exsist and i'm not a 11th century assassin i don't think i'll be doing those things. there's also the straight downput of "How can you like something like that?" Well frankly clive owen and bruce willis are wonderful actors and the visual ascetic along with frank miller and robert rodriguez's directing is something that, yeah, i think i like.

but on topic, try canada... even crappier beaches but i imagine it's just like austrialia but colder and if the goverment ever bans games the US is within driving distance.

This caught my eye; http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94875-Buddhist-Religious-Leader-Says-Games-Satiate-Aggression
 

tsolless

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Jul 15, 2009
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You sure did utilize the whole slippery slope type of argument.

Today they are not releasing a game because there is no mature equivalent rating, tomorrow they are refusing classification to certain humans.
 

Emilie Diabolica

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May 26, 2009
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Wyes said:
Emilie Diabolica said:
dear australians,
please. PLEASE could we organise a protest or something?
we can't just sit on our asses watching as they slowly cut off our freedoms...
D:

gah, i'm gonna go live on the moon, dammit.
The problem is there has already been extensive efforts made to sway the opinion of Michael Atkinson, but he is stubbornly refusing to change his position, and all his counter-arguments are utterly moronic (apparently, it's harder to monitor games in the home than it is to monitor movies. Do you see the flaw in his logic here?).
arghhhhh...
there goes my last scrap of faith in humanity.
psychopathdom here i come!
:D
 

RaZoR GoZ

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May 16, 2009
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NewClassic said:
I can't help but feel like this entire article is like walking into a park, and screaming bloody murder at the grass and trees for having the audacity for being grass and trees. The simple fact of the matter is the ACB is doing it's job. They're paid to do this, and they are working while they're at it. They have to watch the dirty movies, have to play the violent games, and are paid to do nothing other than give the game a classification. For the American readers in the audience, this article is the equivalent of attacking the ESRB for giving a game an M-rating.

It's not the ACB's fault that they have refuse classification because there's no classification this game falls under. The office in charge of classification, the Attorney-General's Department of Australia, is the body that is almost exclusively at fault here. The irony though, is that the department is primarily for the creation of an R18+ classification. However, since the department requires a unanimous vote, there is a single opponent to the classification. An attorney-general named Michael Atkinson.[footnote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Film_and_Literature_Classification_(Australia)#Classification_of_video_games[/footnote]

So, instead of harboring ill-will toward the ACB, it would work more effective to appeal to Mr. Atkinson [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.144722.3256690] to change the ruling. As it stands, he's the only thing between the ACB and a full set of classifications for Video Game media.

And the saddest part is, I severely doubt anyone is going to read this.
Excellent post mate.

It seems to me that there is so much bureaucracy and red tape here in Australia, in comparison with the UK. Things usually take years to change, as it gets caught up in the swamp of different departments, power struggles, conflicting policies & agendas so on an so forth. I guess it's just one of the problems of a Federal system.
 

The Youth Counselor

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Yahtzee, I'd suggest you register a Steam account as an American and run a proxy/IP masking program like Tor [http://www.torproject.org/] to mask your IP as an American one to be able to get the game. It's worked charms for my German friends.

It doesn't solve the problem of the overzealous censorship, but at least we get to play the games we want.
 

gmanyo

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Apr 4, 2009
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My father showed this to me on the news, and the first thing I thought was
"oh man, Yatzee will not be happy about this"
 

4fromK

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concerned ausfag reporting in: will the ban affect a steam purchase of the game? because, if not, the ACB can suck it....
EDIT: theres a petition to sign http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/ozgamers and it seems as though it is gaining some traction
 

Void(null)

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4fromK said:
concerned ausfag reporting in: will the ban affect a steam purchase of the game? because, if not, the ACB can suck it....
EDIT: theres a petition to sign http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/ozgamers and it seems as though it is gaining some traction
It most likely will mean that you will not directly be able to purchase the game from steam... but someone can buy it for you in their country and then Gift it to you in Australia.
 

Superior Mind

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Here's hoping that Valve don't create an "Australasian Version" that gets enforced on New Zealand too. We actually DO have R18 ratings for games here but because the rest of the world seems to think New Zealand exists only as part of Australia we often get the "Australiasian" version.

So yeah, thanks for that Australia.

On a good note it seems like people's patience with the ACB and Michael "head-up-my-arse" Atkinson is wearing incredibly thin, maybe L4D2 will be the game to finally slay the daemon of idiotic Australian censorship.
 

Dabchan

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Jun 10, 2009
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I think Once Upon a Time, a Man Thought of this aloud:
"Maybe if we get rid of the fake voilence, the REAL voilence will go away!"
They gave this man a medal and named a country after him, but then another man said:
"Shoulden't we spent more time focusing on actual violence instead of fake violence?"
They gave THIS Man a kick to the ass, and made him live in seclusion.
 

shaun832

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May 14, 2008
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You may need to note that their attempt at 'protecting the children from being desensitised to violence' is futile because most of them already are.