Aussie Gamers Dress As Zombies To Raise R18+ Awareness 85
swandives writes "Australian gamers will dress as zombies to raise awareness about the lack of an R18+ rating for video games in the country. The protest will begin at Hyde Park Fountain on March 27 and lumber through Sydney, raising awareness of the need for a higher classification rating and hopefully causing a bit of havoc at the same time! Computerworld Australia has pictures of previous zombie protests in the lead-up to the event. Australia has a long history of lobbying for an R18+ games classification but, even after a decade, video games are banned from sale if they exceed the maximum M15+ classification. So far, the list of banned titles includes 7 Sins, Risen, Left 4 Dead 2 and Dark Sector. Others, like Alien vs. Predator, were initially banned but appealed the rating and are now MA15+."
In the mind of the general public... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't think of anything that will do more to reinforce the stereotype that gamers are a bunch of pathetic losers than their efforts to "raise awareness" to this issue by dressing up as zombies and "marching" in "protest".
If the general response to their efforts is "Get a life", they will have deserved it.
Re:In the mind of the general public... (Score:4, Insightful)
If the general response to their efforts is "Get a life", they will have deserved it.
Indeed.
I believe that the successful vector for fighting this type of regulatory nonsense *MUST* come from the game companies. They are really the only force that can significantly influence the politicos. It's about money, folks.
Re:What we really need (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to take a shot in the dark and go ahead on assuming that you are on the young side.
The game rating system (aside from the "Adults Only" debacle, which honestly isn't much of a problem anymore) has been hugely successful. The ratings system for games isn't meant to be something that parents follow word for word, it is just a clear and easy to understand system they can use to determine whether they want their child playing something or not. Even though it is changing, a lot of parents still aren't gamers, and will have no way of knowing whether a game is appropriate for their kids or not. Knowing that a game has different levels of violence, language, or sexual content helps them make a decision without trying the game first themselves.
Personally, I wouldn't care what my kid played so long as they could demonstrate to me that they understand the difference between a video game and real life...but most parents don't feel that way. Knowing the media that their kids are consuming is important to them, and game ratings help them to do that.
Is that a roundabout way to censor? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you refuse to give something a rating and content without rating may not be sold, this is a quite insidious way to censor it.
It's like creating a law that states that the "adults only" rating does not apply to porn and may not be used for porn, without introducing a new rating for porn, keeping it on the no-go list for non-adults and at the same time banning everything unrated. Presto anti-porn censorship.
Either do away with the "not rated - not allowed to sell" or make sure that EVERYTHING can get a rating. Failure to do either is nothing short of censorship.
Re:What we really need (Score:5, Insightful)
I have nothing against a purely informative system, like the one Syberz described in his reply to my parent post. But in some places (Australia is among the most radical, but also Brazil, where I live) the rating is used as a base for deciding which games are legal to purchase, even for adults. You're right in your assumption that I am younger, however I feel that you would agree with me if you were banned by a store employee from buying a product that you want and are legally entitled to purchase because you happened to be accompanied by your (legal minor) younger brother and store policy is to not sell that product to anyone accompanied by a minor. And why is that the store policy? Because the people who inspect and enforce these rules are too stupid to understand that yes, I play games in my free time too, and no, that doesn't make me a criminal just because I live in the same house as a minor.
Re:What we really need (Score:5, Insightful)
A friend of mine worked in a video game shop. He used to have parents with, say nine or ten year old children in tow, come up to him with a game like "LittleBigPlanet" which was rated as 7+. They would then ask him "Is this too babyish for him?" or "Is he[the child] too old for this?". My friends efforts to dissuade them were met with dubious looks. Often, the child would saunter up with a 12+ or 15+ title and wave it about, usually with rhetoric along the lines of "Well DAVE has this game!" or "Timmy's parent let him have this". The parent would then purchase the higher age rated title (usually inferior) confident in the knowledge that it couldn't possibly be "too babyish" for their growing youngster.
There were a couple of funny stories along this line though. One day, one of these pairs came in looking to buy "Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas"(18); my friend decided to have a little fun. He informed the parent that the game she was buying contained scenes of extreme violence, gore, brutality--and here he proceeded to really embellish the content--, you could run people over, kill them with baseball bats, shoot their dead bodies, commit murder, burglary, arson, kill policemen,--here he went off the rails altogether--,kill children, kill animals, kidnap people, and see brains and guts strwn about everywhere. The woman only nodded and said, "Sure, he'll be alright. His friend has it anyway".
About to ring it up, he then dropped the bomb. "You do know as well that, the game has some...sexual content.". The woman's face contorted and she began to slowly recoil. "Well! I did not. He's not getting that so!". Amid protestations from her ward, the woman paced the game back on the shelf and walked out of the shop. My friend said the look the child gave him as it was dragged out of the shop was worth it alone.
Your morals, are not my morals, and they are not the morals of most other people. People have their own morals. If your 18s game has heads getting blown off, some people will quite happily give it to their ten year olds. If your 7s game has a character in a miniskirt, or two characters kissing, some people won't let their 14 year old play it. Yet more people look on your ratings as recommended age ratings, not minimum age ratings. Putting those numbers on the boxes does nothing but placate the outrage brigade; it doesn't help real people make purchasing decisions, or at least, help them in the way you have intended. Even indicators like the PEGI, Violence/Sex/Discrimination/Gambling logos are of little help as they are often inappropriately applied or give the wrong connotations.
Giving video games age ratigns is like trying to give clothes in a shop window age ratings. It's doomed to failure no matter how its done. People are individuals and they should be entitled to buy clothes for themselves and their children as they see fit, and not have someone else's morals thrust upon them from on high. I've trotted this one out before, but Ratchet and Clank for years had a 12+ rating in Europe, despite the creators stated objective to be the video game equivalent of a Pixar film. The most recent title has a 7+ rating, and I shudder to think of the self censorship the team had to go through to secure that rating.
Content suffers from censorship. People aren't help by censorship. Good games are not purchased because of censorship. Children are not protected by censorship. The only people who win from censorship are the censors, and they are the very people who our society should not allow to triumph. We don't need video game censorship, at least not in its current form.
Re:Is that a roundabout way to censor? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What we really need (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why do Aussies stand for this? (Score:2, Insightful)
The very idea of making it illegal for adults to buy a videogame or to buy a movie is ludicrous.
As a possible counterexample, suppose there's a thriving industry in Nastystan producing films that show children being raped, tortured and murdered. Should it be legal to allow these films to be imported into Australia and sold to adults?