If you live in South Australia and enjoy video games (and are of voting age) I hope to hell you're giving your support to the independent party Gamers 4 Croydon in their campaign to dethrone Michael Atkinson. In a smart move the G4C party have knocked one of Atkinson's pillars right out from underneath him with a statistical report showing what rating certain gmes have received over seas.

In a recent interview over at Games On Net the candidates for Croyden and the Legislative Council, Kat Nicholson and Chris Prior, answered plenty of questions on their campaign and goals and dropped some impressive factual figures that shoot holes all through the argument against an R18+ introduction.

Chris Prior revealed that over the last three years 85% of the games rated MA15+ were rated M in the USA by the ESRB (which in their system restricts them to age 17 and over, so one year shy of our R18+ rating) and 50% were rated 18+ by the European PEGI system. What does this prove? It proves that the lack of 18+ rating for games in Australia means that games that receive a 17/18+ rating over seas are being shoe horned into a 15+ rating in Australia. The arguement put forward by Michael Atkinson and his sympathisers is that an R18+ rating for Australia would open a flood gate of violent and sexual games into Australia and make them available to minors. These figures prove that these heinous games are all ready available in Australia and being made more available to younger ages in Australia due to our lack of the R18+ classification.

Obviously this is something that avid game players all ready knew, maybe not the statistics but the general facts of the matter, and why we're so quick to spit fire when we here the conservative rhetoric against an R18+ classification. But it's nice to have the hard figures to back up the knowledge.

The question really is, are the plain, cold facts going to have any value in the face of someone like Michael Atkinson, who consistently proves himself to be more of a loony conservative with each press release and interview. In a recent interview on Good Game on ABC2 Michael Atkinson, rather than addressing any sort of fact or logical argument, instead discussed the physical danger he and his family were enduring when going up against the volatile and dangerous 'gamer community'. I shit you not, this is how he talked. See the interview in full below.

Before we even discuss the fact someone stuck and angry letter under his door, we should take into account that during his crusade against motorcycle gangs Michael Atkinson made a statement in parliament about a motorcycle gang threatening him by barbecuing a cat at a public barbecue in a park near his house. After a media investigating into this incident it was revealed that, the people involved weren't bikers and the animal being barbecued and eaten wasn't a cat, and it didn't even happen at a location near his house at all and he was forced to issue an apology. So we should take with a grain of salt any claims Atkinson makes about being a victim for his cause. He's quite keen on painting himself with this brush.

In fact the shoe seems to be on the other foot for people involved in the St Clair Land swap issue in which complaints have been made by people in Atkinson's electorate being threatened and intimidated by Atkinson and his staff. He's currently embroiled in a corruption investigation over the whole issue. Read the details at this link here.

Gamers 4 Croydon have the facts on their side, they have the truth of the matter and they're playing a straight and transparent campaign. But they're playing against a seasoned parliamentarian who isn't afraid to cloud issues, play with public perceptions and make the issue entirely personal to push his agenda. If you live in South Australia please take the time to support them.

Here's the feature from Good Game showing Atkinson.