I’m currently 33 years old, and I’ve played computer games all my life. From back when they were simple, like asteroids and space invaders, to now, where the graphics are 100 times better… but the concept is still the same: It’s just entertainment.

To assume children are not smart enough to know the difference between pretend violence and real violence is absurd, and an insult to them quite frankly.

Do we not encourage kids to play Cowboys and Indians? Cops and Robbers? They pretend to “shoot” each other, to fall down and “die”… but they know it’s not real. They know they are just playing “a game”.

And whether the game is on the playground, or on a TV screen, there is no difference. It’s “pretend” you see. Perhaps the lawmakers in this country are so old and jaded, they forget what it’s like to be a child, to have enough imagination to “pretend” and know it’s not real.

I play “Halo” with my sister, who is 16 now but I’ve done so since she was much younger. She and I have killed many pretend aliens on the xbox, but do I think she would actually pick up a gun and shoot it…ever? No, the thought is utterly ridiculous.

The current classification system is broken. Countless games get rated MA15+ in Australia and R18+ everywhere else in the world. Modern Warfare 2 is a recent example, the biggest selling game of all time and we rated it MA15+ because that’s the highest rating we could give it, and to ban it would have caused hundreds of thousands of copies to be imported into Australia from the US, the UK and Asia (and the retail industry wouldn’t stand for that). So the rest of the world rated it an Adult game, but we said it was OK for teenagers because the system is fundamentally flawed.

Parents DESERVE the right to know which games are suitable for their kids and which games are not.

And Adults (like myself), DESERVE the right to purchase games made for Adults.

If you haven’t made your submission yet you’d better hurry up, only 3 days left (Feb 28 is the cutoff).

The giants of the film industry have lost their case against ISP iiNet in a landmark judgment handed down in the Federal Court today.

The decision had the potential to impact internet users and the internet industry profoundly as it sets a legal precedent surrounding how much ISPs are required to do to prevent customers from downloading movies and other content illegally.

But does this mean organisations like AFACT are going to start suing individual people for millions of dollars like other companies are doing in the US?

I mean, after all that was IINet’s main defence, that they are just an internet provider and are not responsible for what individuals do.

Hmm.

Wow, that’s a long time… yet it seems like only yesterday I was racking my brain trying to come up with a domain name that sounded “cool” but wasn’t already taken. Then I stumbled upon “darkgate.net” and went “Bah, that’ll do”.

Wonder if it’ll still be here 10 years from now…

This particular paragraph really gets me, it’s something I hadn’t though of until this guy put it so plainly:

Indeed, it is curious that so many pro-status-quo arguments revolve around the impact on minors, as this implies scepticism of not just the proposal at hand, but the entire structure of the classification system. While the protection of children from disturbing and/or inappropriate content is indeed a valid consideration, the very purpose of classification and ratings categories is to serve this concern. The fact of a minor’s possession of a game that had been deemed inappropriate for his or her age range would not represent a failure in the guidelines; it would represent a failure in the application of the guidelines. A rejection of a classification category based on lack of confidence over the correct application of the criteria can only imply a rejection of classification schemes as a whole.

Surely, if people like Atkinson campaign against R18+ games because they don’t trust the system to stop these games from getting into the hands of minors, then their problem isn’t with the games… it’s with the classification system ITSELF.

They don’t trust the system, and if that is the case… we’re having the wrong argument.

On a side note, I noticed that Modern Warfare 2 has received an R18+ rating in every other country apart form Australia. Here, it got a MA15+ rating, but really/probably should have been banned in Australia because we don’t have an R rating.

But how can you tell the Australian retail games industry they won’t get the opportunity to sell the greatest selling game OF ALL TIME? All that revenue is going to go to overseas sites like amazon, dvd.co.uk and play-asia. You just can’t… so you give the game a MA15+ rating instead!

So now Mum is at the game store and little Johnny the teenager is begging her for Modern Warfare 2 since all his mates have it and it’s the most awesome game ever. She picks it up, reads “MA15+” on the label, and probably think’s it’s appropriate for little Johnny and pats herself on the back for being such a good parent.

Only in Australia.

Although that’s not usually a problem since I don’t blog enough!

EDIT: OK, so I’ve spent most of the day editing the theme, making it work with the slurper and vice versa. Phew, so glad I’m not a web developer. I remember when CSS first became popular, I remember how awesome it was and I converted my site’s HTML to use it for just about all the “style” my site had. Now CSS just seems so complicated, it hurts my feeble brain!

Atkinson: “We’re talking about games such as the Japanese game game “Rape Play” where one scores points for raping a mother and daughter.”
Mares: “But as I understand that’s not allowed on sale anywhere outside Japan even in countries with R18 classifications.”
Atkinson: “Yeah, but I wouldn’t put it past the classification board to make that an R-rated game frankly.”

Oh YES!! Of course they would! Even though it’s banned in every other country, we’d classify it!

Seriously, I don’t know what planet this guy lives on. But its very very far away from here.

Trust me, he knows who’s been naughty and who’s been nice… and who needs to be EXTERMINATED!

Nice backflip by the classification review board. Gee, I wonder if this has anything to do with it…