On the Left 4 Dead Ban

[mambodog]

Apparently in Western Australia (the state of Aus that I live in) importing a copy of a game, movie, etc that is Refused Classification can result in a $10,000 fine. I think the law was aimed at people downloading weird porn or something, but could just as easily be applied to importing L4D2 uncut.

Also, as others have stated, it isn't the ratings board that is holding back an R18+ rating for games, it is the Attorneys-General, but on top of that there is another holdup, which is the department of the Minister for Home Affairs, which is dragging its feet on the release of a discussion paper on the R18 rating. This discussion paper is the way forward for the rating, so at the moment the ball is in his court. So Aussies, if you want to contact someone to get things moving, send him a (mature, polite) letter, to let him know that it is important to you. That is, a real letter, don't waste your time with an email. Here are his details:

The Hon Brendan O'Connor MP

Minister for Home Affairs

Parliament House Contact
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?id=AN3

 

[ReverseEngineered]

I wouldn't even be so offended if it really was just "save the children", but it's not. Because they claim to be so concerned with children, even fully-grown adults are treated like children. We don't need child safety locks and ratings boards to keep us safe: we're adults who are capable of making judgements for ourselves. If we want to rip zombies to shreds while being sprayed with blood and guts, then let us -- it's not like we're harming anyone.

The video game rating boards are no different than any other self-appointed censorship panel. It's a group of self-righteous people who think they have some God-given job to protect everyone else from the immoral, the morbid, and the sinful. Fuck them. What they think is corrupting, I call cathartic. What they call violent, I call realistic. What they call a sin, I call a game. It's make-believe, pretend, pixels on a screen. We're not mass murders, we're just racking up points, and no amount of blood, drugs, or otherwise are going to change the nature of the game.

The whole damn world seems to be taking a turn back to the Victorian age and I can't honestly even say who is behind it. With so many sinners and perverts out there, who are these people instituting these ridiculous decency standards? No doubt there's some rich minority with nothing better to do than tell the rest of us how we should live our lives.

 

[widowspeak]

@Glefistus--Since when does anything with America make sense? There's an uproar over Obama being a socialist, but then people cry foul when one points out that due to many government-run programs we've been living in a semi-socialist country for a long while now. People want the government to stay out of our bodies and our bedrooms, yet we still fight and debate over legislation concerning the issues of abortion and gay marriage.

I mean, we order diet sodas with our Big Macs, for crying out loud! We've *never* been "quite right," to begin with.

 

[widowspeak]

For once I agree with Yahtzee's Extra Punctuation...
With things like this, it's only a matter of time until we have governments like the one in MIrror's Edge. I hope that never happens. That game was terrible.

That has got to be the funniest comment I've seen all day. Two thumbs up!

 

[Spider Expert]

Also few? Hardly.

What part of "The average gamer in Australia is about 30 years old" didn't you understand.
The majority has to follow the rules that exsist for the few.

Suddenly the youths appeal of gaming disappears

 

[Knight Templar]

Also few? Hardly.

What part of "The average gamer in Australia is about 30 years old" didn't you understand.
The majority has to follow the rules that exsist for the few.

Suddenly the youths appeal of gaming disappears

You'll need to elaborate on what exactly you're saying here.

 

[A Pious Cultist]

I don't agree with Yahtzee at all on this issue. There's no way around it, this game is a solid 18+ game rating wise. What should be said is that there is an absolute need for an 18+ rating in Australia.

 

[HomeGrownGames]

As we are sending right now Painkiller Resurrection to the Rating Board down under I get a slight sense of panic while reading the lines...

 

[Evil mr dave]

the zombies in left 4 dead are actually living people, just infected wth the virus that makes them go insane. sucks yahtzee can't get it, i was looking forward to the review.

 

[the cornflake]

Just think about the world in the next twenty years when the old gezers are dead and the "innocent children" are running things. These rules most likely wont exist, and the old people who are still clinging to life with lifesupport wont be able to do a damn thing about it.

 

[piez13]

Wow. Yahtzee really likes his beaches.

 

[Cyngi the Rapeface]

Well it is complete bull-ovaltine-chocolate-drink, but good ol' yahtzee can get it with his good friends from GAME TRADERS ROBINA.

 

[Spider Expert]

Also few? Hardly.

What part of "The average gamer in Australia is about 30 years old" didn't you understand.
The majority has to follow the rules that exsist for the few.

Suddenly the youths appeal of gaming disappears

You'll need to elaborate on what exactly you're saying here.

I'm simply saying nearly every kid is gonna want to play this and they probably will anyway and it will probably have absolutely no negative effect and that the large majority of adults wouldn't care for the game anyway. It's just SILLY banning it.

 

[Triple G]

I'm saddened that the game was banned there. How will he review L4D2 if he can't get it? Oh wait...GAME TRADERS ROBINA. Good luck Yahtzee, hope you get it.

there's a little catch with that. If you import a steam game, then you can't install it. If you buy a game in the US and then install it on an Australian PC, then it says "invalid regional code" and refuses to accept your CD-key. I speak out of experience here.

 

[MorphingDragon]

I don't think GAME TRADERS ROBINA will be able to help the poor man. Since it's been refused classification, it's illegal to sell it commercially.

However, he could always come over here to New Zealand for a day, pick up a copy of the game and fly back.

Not a chance, We get bundled as Australia. If Its Banned in Aussie, it will probably be rare here too.

 

[ViVA Le ME]

Wow the Australian gov. should be involved in Africa. "Think of the children!"

 

[Hugo Artenis Rune]

I think it's funny that the fuckers at the ACB get to sit there and obviously play the game for ages before deciding that no-one else should.

I can imagine the conversation when they're "rating" the game..

"Whoa! Did you see that? I blew his legs RIGHT off!"
"Awesome!"
"Yeah! Fuck me, willya lookit all the zombies! Blow them up!"
*boooom*
"HAHA that was *sweeeeeet* - look, that ones arm is on that windowledge hahahah"
"You know - this is awesome. Wouldn't it be amazing if we were the only people in the country to play this?"
"Hmmm - yeah - you have a point. This is WAY to good for anyone else"
"Shall we do the old no-rating routine?"
"Fuck yeah, then I can make a fortune selling copies of the game DVD's on the black market"
"Awesome! Fancy a pint?"
"Sweeeet"

*not really an imaginary conversation - that really happened.

 

[ToenailCar]

Well a few things to say here, firstly this is more of an issue with one guy, as has been said before.

Then ironically, in refusing to create an R-18+ rating the people in charge of these things are actually exposing more violent games to children at a younger age than those in the US and such places.
See aside from the odd refused classification (Which I might add seems to be completely arbitrary and has little to do with actual content) most of the games get through unchanged with an MA-15+ or an M-15+ rating where in america they would have gotten an R-18+ (Or do you guys call it T-18? I forget). So the average australian 15 year old actually has access to more violent content in games than the average american one.

As a whole honestly australia seems to be more laid back when it comes to these things than america, it's just that we have some odd bureaucratic choke points that we can't seem to get rid of.
Another example is the ratings bored continued banning of the odd (again arbitrary) film that contains depictions of nudity despite having absolutely no problem with hardcore X-rated porn movies which in any case have content far more gratuitous than any non-porn movie.

Of course the gameplay is the most important part but if devers would respect this then there would not be such a huge pile of mediocre or bad games. Now to the point of gore as selling point. Just look at recent games on your favorite game news site or whatever place. Many present themselves better or buy-worthy because they have as much gore, violence or sex possible. Why do they need this? Because the game itself is a run-of-the mill mediocre FPS/RPG/whatever. Instead of innovating in gameplay they try to make as much gore/sex/violence as they can. But the truth is that a good game with good gameplay, catchy story and god challenges does not require gore everywhere. In fact the best game I know has little blood or gore but is one of the best selling games every. This is why I say this should be taken by game devers as a sign to rethink this more-gore=better-sales crap they have going on.

I enjoy the odd bit of gore because it's simple mindless fun, that's it. Nothing more is needed sometimes. I also resent you citing left 4 dead as a game barren of interesting gameplay. Left 4 dead and others like it (Like gears of war) have quite advanced competitive multiplayer in them and are simply topped with a bit of gratuitous fun that happens to come in the form of buckets o' blood.

Granted this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I can assure you that if they were as lacking in gameplay as you seem to think they are they wouldn't have spawned such successful competitive scenes where so many other games have failed to.

 

[lostbuthappy]

Dear Australia,

you are so damn right! Piles of corpses are totally not suitable for children. I've seen Die Hard when I was seventeen and now look at me. LOOK AT ME! Yeah, the truth hurts. While I totally agree that violence and video games are not cool, I really don't understand why you don't see the other potential origins of danger for society. Isn't it true that children are much more endangered by stupidity and mediocrity nowadays than by violence?
Please, Australia, protect your kids from genociding player substitutes, but while you're at it you should also shut down every single radio and TV station and ban Hollywood films. Oh, and kill all the smokers, not only would you protect the children from the effects of passive smoking, the smokers themselves would be thankful too (if they were still alive, that is) since they won't get lung cancer when they're dead.
One last suggestion: Why don't you build a Hatcheries and Conditioning Centre to make absolutely sure that your kids are safe from bad influences. Ford, would I love to see that!

Well, gotta run now.
Greetings from Germany,
lostbuthappy

PS: Sex is good => don't ban genitals. Thank you.

 

[Therumancer]

While old I'll finally get around to commenting. I pretty much said my piece in another "article" about the same thing.

In general this isn't really about moral guardianship, it's about power. Free Speech is one of those things that goverments hate. One of the reasons why it was guaranteed in the US Constitution along with things like Freedom Of The Press, and the right to bear arms (in case someone in power tries to remove the other rights). Even in Australia the goverment can't suddenly decide "yes, let's have an Orwellian police state that we will rule" they need to get the support of the people to open those doors, and moral guardianship is a way of drumming up support. Once you have the precedent ball rolling it takes less and less approval from the general populance to extend the law into other things, and even totally unrelated areas. Bureaucracy is the biggest monster created by humanity, and this is why it can do more damage to society than the cumulative effect of a Gojira marathon to the octagon type enviroment that Tokyo provides in those movies.


The thing is though that Valve for example is group of wusses. All video game companies are. "OMG, if we oppose this we might lose money, get in trouble, or actually go to jail waaaah!" which is why they back down. Heck, I haven't even seen a company try perfectly serious political/legal rallying, or organize a non-violent "Rise Of The Nerds" against the goverments that do this kind of thing (Australia being a key example).

Oh sure, us nerds might sit down and make pretensions of caring with internet petitions, but honestly it means nothing, and we know it. It takes leadership and resources to actually DO something, and sadly the only ones who have that abillity are the game companies themselves who are too busy bent over giving rim jobs to the establishment, and trying to find ways to get their consumers to give up the rights they currently have in favor of digital downloads, to really care.

Valve has said their very "sad" about Australia's ruling. Well, rather than worshipping these guys as great designers and such, I think a bunch of nerd rage should be being thrown in their direction for simply grabbing a tissue and then running off to cry someplace.

Not that Valve doesn't sort of deserve this mind you, see I'm not a big shooter fan, I do not play Left 4 Dead, but they DID make some promises to their fan base that seem to be being broken by the release of Left 4 Dead 2. Like many people with an eye on the industry I would love for this product to get a big huge mouthful of fail. However there are bigger issues at stake here now. I think by fighting Valve could regain some of the respect they seem to have lost with this sequel to begin with.

Oh and Yahtzee, you seem to get messages around quite well in the gaming community. It occurs to me that if you believe in all of this, you could probably be doing more down there in Australia. Not like Valve or anything, but I'd imagine if you decided to throw "Yahtzeepalooza" in the middle of some area inconveinent to the goverment, and bad mouth the censorship policies, you could get plenty of aussie game nerds to come down with signs at the very least.

Then again I'm insane. See if I had a bunch of money to spend, I'd probably be trying to develop some of my ideas for games (natch), probably unsuccessfully. However I remember seeing this Tasmanian mercenary on TV they interviewed once that cut both his ears off and claimed he could outbox Mike Tyson or something like that. I'd probably keep a petty cash drawer around to periodically hire him (or others of his ilk) to expand a collection of body parts collected from censors.

We all have our crazy ideas (like mine) but the point is that there ARE still perfectly sane and rational ways people can start addressing this kind of issue. The kinds of things your supposed to exhaust before anyone does anything crazy, but right now I don't think I've ever seen one pro-video game rally.