Graffiti Game Banned in Australia 313
afaik_ianal writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that 'Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure' has been banned in Australia. The game involves battling the authorities to overthrow corrupt officials using only street fighting skills and graffiti. From the article, "The decision was endorsed last night by the Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, who had asked the board to review of the game's MA15+ classification after local councils and state governments voiced concerns that the game would promote graffiti.""
More Stupid Censorship and Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it ironic though that the point of the game is to fight government corruption and promote freedom of expression.
Re:GREAT! (Score:2, Insightful)
They have now guaranteed it will be a hit! (Score:5, Insightful)
And I would love to read their position paper (which will apparently get relaeased) soon that explains the majority and minority positions. I cannot understand how they feel that they should ban this game and yet allow violent movies to not be banned.
Who else feels... (Score:5, Insightful)
Grafitti vs beating people up... (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes me very sad. We teach our kids that violence is cool, acceptable, exciting, fun.
Then we complain about all the violence in the streets.
If you want to ban a game, please ban it for excessive violence, not for some paint sprayed on walls.
Re:GREAT! (Score:5, Insightful)
Quoth the Simpsons:
Meyers: I did a little research and I discovered a startling thing...
There was violence in the past, long before cartoons were invented.
Kent: I see. Fascinating.
Meyers: Yeah, and know something, Kent? The Crusades, for instance.
Tremendous violence, many people killed, the darned thing went
on for thirty years.
Kent: And this was before cartoons were invented?
Meyers: That's right, Kent.
It used to be Music (Score:5, Insightful)
I love the following Frank Zappa quotation.
"There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do
something we'd all love one another."
-- Frank Zappa
Not exactly the same, but close enough if we replace love songs with first person shooters and....
Nevermind
Jet Set Radio (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More Stupid Censorship and Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, America is a perfect example.
The more they regulate and litigate the worse things get here.
There is a correlation, wether the totalitarians want to admit it or not.
Politicians have absolutely NO RIGHT nor should they have the power to tell the population what is right or moral for what sould be completely obvious reasons to anyone smarter than the average barnyard monkey.
Re:It used to be Music (Score:3, Insightful)
Riiight ..... (Score:3, Insightful)
All things considered, this is a fantastic marketing stunt.
My proposed solution, by the way, is to ban all sales of video games to {but not possession by} minors. That way, parents and guardians get to decide what is and isn't appropriate.
Re:More Stupid Censorship and Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Thompson? Jack? Is that you?
You can have your cute games with their colored walls. I think what the "realistic" games do is allow an outlet for things that should not be let out in public. Like killing people, or walking around randomly pissing on folks. It's safer to do it in-game, and you also avoid running into petty quarrels with those law enforcement people.
I support the idea that the parents are ultimately responsible for what input their kids recieve in the fragile little minds of theirs. There will always be people doing bad things because - well, they do bad things. The reasons are many and complicated, but games (as TV before them) are not the one and only cause of this. A catalyst, perhaps, not the reason.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
GTA was banned in Australia too [zdnet.com.au]
Hmmmm we have a very weird society.
I'm not sure whether you're talking about the USA or Australia - you seem a little confused. (but yes, they're both quite weird)
Re:More Stupid Censorship and Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's standard practice in political censorship to attack some side issue and not the political message. For instance, Ulysses was written by an Irishman and criticised British rule over Ireland.
Ulysses was banned for obscenity rather than for it's political content even though the so called obscene content was tame even for the time in which it was written. The same case can be made for the film of A Clockwork Orange, which I believe is still banned in the UK.
Re:More Stupid Censorship and Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Guns and porn are freely allowed, just not to a kid. You need a licence for a gun - you can even carry them arround in the street if you have a permit. Porn is allowed to everyone who's legally old enough.
I also had this discussion with a friend a while ago about if drugs should be legalized, like alcohol is - i think that marijuana should be legalized, but he made a pretty good case about how every single drug should be legalized, which is a longer story in itself. Even then, alcohol, tobbaco and some medicaments ARE drugs and you can get them, again, if you're old enough.
Eventually it's up to the parents to decide what's sutiable for their children to see. See, kids are NOT the only one playing games. And we have a rating system already to determine which games can and which ones can't be sold to a kid. Banning it was completely unnecesary. The game doesn't encourage vandalism more than GTA encourages stealing cars, Hollywood action movies encourage shooting people and religious TV shows encourage catholicism.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GREAT! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:More Stupid Censorship and Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee... (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee, for a minute I thought they had concerns the game would promite violence, but *pfew*, violence is still normal, and accepted.
Re:More Stupid Censorship and Irony (Score:2, Insightful)
Come on! A Clockwork Orange is one of my favorite movies. I've read the book twice as well, but to say it's tame is an absolute lie, unless you consider rape, murder, graphic violence and gratuitous drug use to be kid stuff. Just because Hollywood etc. has desensitized you to the point that you consider these things tame, does not mean that they actually are.
Even when viewed through a contemporary lens, the portrayal of the banality of extreme antisocial behavior is disturbing, and scenes such as the beating of the bum or the attempted rape of a young girl in a theater by Billyboy's gang are still very graphic. The movie got an X rating in 1971 and would still get an R today, and rightly so. This is not a movie for children or those lacking maturity. It is in no way "tame", not even by today's standards.
I know you're trying to bolster this knee-jerk reaction to the concept that banning anything is an overreaction, but mischaracterizing an extremely violent movie as "tame" does not lend credence to your point of view...and if you truly do consider this film to be innocuous, then you have bigger problems with which to contend than the banning of a video game in Oz.
Isn't it ironic how your attitude tends to mirror that of Alex? Maybe you need the Ludovico treatment. XD
No, the cat does not "got my tongue." (Score:2, Insightful)
Too bad you guys don't have a Supreme Court that recognizes unlimited freedom of speech, including expression in game design (or mere game playing, in this case.)
And Moderators, I home you enjoy living somewhere where you're permitted by the government to mod me flamebait.
And in perception, how like a God! (Score:3, Insightful)