The ABC are reporting on a meeting today between Australia's Attorneys-General about video game ratings:

A meeting of federal, state and territory ministers in the Barossa Valley in South Australia has agreed there should be a public consultation process on the classification of games.
...
Federal Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus says wide consultation is needed before any change is considered.
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"That's why we agreed today that we would conduct a full consultation with the community so that we all know better whether or not it is a sensible thing to introduce an adult classification for games."

It's been a big day for this sort of thing internationally, with a new report in the UK raising the profile of the game rating issue on that side of the globe.

knowing all the goody goodies out there, we lose again...

i hinted to it at in the other thead. but i reckon they ask a whole heap of racist f***tard old people with f***ed up backward views on life.

Yeah, the problem is that the community at large just doesn't understand video games. The answers most people in this clip give show that people that aren't exposed to video games just have no idea.

I'm interested that this discussion is still making progression because that seems to suggest that the SA attorney general must have at least changed his point of view somewhat and hopefully that's because of the outpour of information he's received due to his negative stance.

Still, the average citizen just has no idea about games. They don't realise that:

- there are games currently rated MA15+ that should be R (15 year olds are playing games that, even in my opinion should not be played by persons under 18)
- enforcing sales of R rated games will be no more difficult than it currently is for the sale of porn/movies/cigarettes.
- Any technically adept person can already get a hold of currently banned games anyway.
- there's still no conclusive evidence that violent games even contribute to violent behaviour.

But then hey, every 3 years the people of this country vote for something far more important that a huge proportion of them are grossly uneducated about. Why should this be any different?

way to steal my thread. woot....

There was a really interesting look at this issue on JJJ the other day. I thought it was hack but there doesn't seem to be any hack stories in their archive on this... so I'm confused now.

Either way, they were saying something about the increasing average age of gamers. Someone was saying that by like 2014 the average age of gamers would be the average age of 'Australians'. I guess at that point there is maximum saturation of gamers, long enough for a gamer to have started as a kid and grown all the way up to being an old fart still playing (which I find funny :O)

Anyway, its likely that games wont be accepted as mainstream media until that time, even though something like 80% (again according to the story) of Australian households have a game console.

Regardless of all that bulls***, I don't really care about an R-rating. Most games that are refused classification would still be refused classification with an R rating, even if one was added. Mostly, the addition of an R rating would just get a whole s***load of MA15 games reclassified R which would mean less kiddies (at least that's how they think, most kids will still get them) and maybe the odd games that is censored to make MA15+ could be released uncensored as R.

But in the end, the addition of an R rating wont effect much because most game makers these days are looking for the broadest demographic and R rating games will still be some pretty niche s*** IMO. (Like f***en soldier of fortune torture porn games) Even if R games were introduced, I think games like GTA would make MA15+.

As long as the game classifications are made by the publishers themselves, not an independent body, it won't matter much because most of the content now that we get as MA15+ is actually R. The publishers just write a paper on the game and submit it and it all goes through. There is very little double checking.

That said, if they do overhaul that process it will make a big difference. Changing a game for our market isn't always going to be a viable option and we will just start missing out on games that get bounced because they don't fit into the MA15+ category, but with the rising popularity of steam and other online delivery methods maybe that isn't such a big issue.

Until steam is forced to comply with national restrictions.

Steam already has regioning in place. Or have you forgotten that they charged us almost double for Call of Duty 4 once they got whinged at because of Boba.

If any 'banned in australia' game is ever worthwhile enough for publishing on Steam, you can bet it won't be available for purchase from an Australian IP address.

yeah good one boba

Most of the Steam limitations though are (I believe) at the request of the publishers - THQ, for example, won't let them sell Company of Heroes (and won't respond to emails asking why :) So on the surface it seems to be mostly about regioning for profit churning rather than complying with OFLC directives.

f*** boba

Join my Secret Society Against Ricky on Facebook and show him just how much you dislike him!

Wait.. why did boba make my CoD4 more expensive?

because he has sand in his mangina.

I reported boba to the ACCC! pretty sure he is to blame for petrol prices too

THQ, for example, won't let them sell Company of Heroes

Ah, so thats why I couldn't find it. I remembered a post about how there was a Gold version of Company of Heroes that included the expansion and stuff available on Steam, so I went to buy it while I was on holidays over easter to give myself something to play and couldn't find it anywhere :(

I'll second that - What's with the "boba causing CoD4 price rises & the end of the civilised world etc etc" comments?