|
Ladies and gentlemen, South Australian AG Michael Atkinson, like Jack Thompson before him, has thrown caution to the wind and let fly the crazy. Lets pull up a chair and watch the begginning of his spiral into obscurity. There's been a lot happening in his world lately, he's been busy, so here's a quick update for those of you without the time to read every one of his crazy press releases and letters to the media.
If only he could put as much effort into polishing of a certain discussion paper instead of dictating all these letters (in his underwear with a basin on his head and holding a margarita I imagine), we might make a little progress on this whole classification thing. It's like he doesn't WANT it to be discussed, well that's just crazy.
Atkinson recently appeared on Radio National and was queried on Modern Warfare 2's infamous (to people who haven't played it) No Russian level where a team of terrorists shoot up civilians in an airport. Atkinson expressed how appalled and disgusted he was by this game he'd never seen or experienced and had only had it described to him from a third party source. He then went off on the OFLC and their habit of trying to slip questionable content into Australia, the scoundrels!
Apparently the OFLC were, he boldly stated, so incredibly incompetent we were on the verge of being inundated with games featuring violent rape and suicide bomb simulators. Crazy stuff indeed. Of course the games he was refering to was Rapelay which was even banned in its home country of Japan so has little chance of being available to anyone any where and the other was a joke (albeit in poor taste) Flash game that did the rounds about five years ago and can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection any where, except maybe China.... and possibly soon Britain.
Because the OFLC are so terribly bad at doing their job of banning every nipple and reference to bowel movements we could possibly be exposed to Atkinson fully intends to play white knight and gallop to the rescue of our apparent moral outrage by filing to have the OFLC reclassify the game in question, Modern Warfare 2. After the radio show Gamespot.com received a letter saying just this from Atkinson's desk, which he may even have written! Or at the very least approved the contents of. Unfortunately the OFLC treat everyone the same, no matter how mad with power they are, so Atkinson will have to join the queue in his appeal over Modern Warfare 2.
Prior to the radio interview Atkinson also sent a long letter to a gentleman named Robert and Kotaku posted several choice excerpts from the letter you can read here, or the letter in full here. In the letter Atkinson makes several compelling and valid arguements as to why we should have an R 18+ rating for games. Which is a shame for him as he is supposed to be trying to block its introduction. Still, when he says the existing classification system isn't effective and we need to keep adult material out of the hands of children you can't help but think, 'Hey, an R 18+ classification would really help achieve that'.
Speaking as someone who has grown up in Australia and its classification system I know full well that it works. I was frequently denied the rental of R 18+ movies by my video store and my parents while growing up and constantly had to settle for the M rated Sho Kosugi and Van Damme movies. All due to that that little R and the very plain text reading, "This material is restricted to persons above the age of 18". The rules for M and MA films are kind of fuzzy, even cinema's don't quite know how to enforce them, but the rules for R rated content are plain, I vivedly remember my friend Ben and I convincing two girls from uni to sneak us into a screening of Seven when we were both 16. R ratings are automatic stop signs for many eager young ones trying to get their parents to hire them out Revenge of the Ninja (terrific film by the way). Since the R rating has, in my experience, been working effectively since the 80's for film, I can't see why anyone would question its effectiveness for video games. I'll be sure to ask Atkinson if he's seen Revenge of the Ninja when he calls me to let me know I'm being sued for libel over this blog post.
Queensland it seems, has had quite enough, with a state MP named Kate Jones trying to introduce and R 18+ rating via a petition. You can read the details of the official petition here. If you live in Queensland and care about games I strongly suggest you click through and sign that sucker. Chances are good that the pettition will not actually lead directly to any action, but a loud and vocal show of hands can be used against arguements that Australian consumers are unconcerned about the issue in the future.
Remember people, this was the tipping out, his slagging of the OFLC was Atkinson's couch jumping Oprah moment. From here it's a slippery slope. Lets just hope its a relatively speedy trip down as well.
|
Comments
*sigh*
He's got NO IDEA what he's even talking about. Could you imagine this bloke with some REAL power?.
Remember his name for if he ever comes up for a national vote. The only thing saving him is the fact that he's a national political minnow cushioned by the voting border of S.A. Soon as his head comes over that metaphorical trench it's gonna be taken out by the vote. He's winning now, but wait till we all get a say in his political future.
Sign the petition to tell this guy that we don't think he knows best for us, allow an 18+ games rating...
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_qld/CurrentEPetitio n.aspx?PetNum=1346
Thanks.