Once more, Australia follows in England's footsteps towards totalitarianism. Aussies, why do you keep electing people who hold you in such deep contempt? You do realize that political content filtering is next, don't you...

Are you free citizens whose government obeys YOU, or are you subjects under the thumb of rulers like Conroy? What happened to you that you allow yourself to be treated like this?

Subjects of the Commenwealth do enjoy theirs dictators. God forbid an adult chooses their entertainment without the governments regulation. This is a country that wants laws against and regulating the sale of replica guns, seeks to control the everyday aspects of the peoples lives, and like many socialist countries is rife with political corruption. They don't care what you play, they just want to be able to know that they tell you your options, like a child. The weak people of Australia would rather give the decisions facing their society to the dictators rather than make decisions themselves, good luck.

First up i'm an advocate of an R18+ rating here, and I think though it sounds simple, it may just be a matter of the current generation of politicians misunderstanding games as a medium and what an R18+ category has to offer - aside from opening the doors to possible gratuitous sex and violence (pfft). With "pioneer" gamers getting older I think we'll see a shift in public opinion. Until then its just about whether the majority of citizens would like to see a change. I think the political situation is not as bleak as the first few comments, our politicians are just that! Bloody Polys!

I am sorry to say but this situation is signs of a Government out of control. This type of "people control" can only be likened to any number of war and pre-war dictators. Who the hell do these people think they are to now try and control the games people play by a population where the average age of the gamers is 30 years old. I understand the need for child protection but unless they counter the censorship with the likes of an R18 rating or some such other thing then the average gamer in Australia in going to be penalized but a committee of people whose own personal morals dictate what Australians can play and not play.

It is bad enough that we have cameras watching our every move and an internet censorship mandate blocking "undesirable sites" now they are trying to dictate what we can play in our leisure time.

God forbid that the panel decides that WoW or Eve-online is not suitable for anyone under 15.........

For goodness sake WoW has more subscribers than the whole population of Australia.

If this sort of Governing continues I for one will be considering leaving the country. It is pathetic

They don't have freedom of speech in Australia? What a shame.

"For goodness sake WoW has more subscribers than the whole population of Australia."

Wow has more than 21 million subscribers? News to me. I thought they were at 11 million only 6 months ago.

sorry should have been "For goodness sake WoW has more subscribers than half the population of Australia." my bad

The games industry in Australia makes twice the amount of revenue that the film industry does - and that's without the tens of millions of dollars of government subsidies filmmakers enjoy out of the taxpayers' pockets. It's time for the games industry in Australia to get serious about consolidating industry lobbying efforts in Canberra and making clear to politicians that stupidity like this HURTS rather than helps Australia's economy. Especially in these times of "economic trouble" as they are pointing out to us every day. It strikes me as PR stupidity for the Government to be actively driving the knife into a profitable, growing (in Australia really nascent) industry.

People have been trying to get an R rating in Australia for years. There are plenty of people who are serious about it, and some people in government who don't want to hear it, because "think of the children"... basically.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin

Is it just me, or is the road to hell paved with the good intentions of thinking of the children?

This goes way beyond games and game industry, this is an attack on freedom plain and simple. Now they say its to keep violent games out of the hands of children. "Its for the Children" is the excuse they will use to clamp down on all civil liberties. Soon "The Children" will need to be protected from subversive literature and then "The Children" will need to be protected against political decent. What the "The Children" need protection from is power hungry bureaucrats trying to replace free society with a corporate controlled Soviet style prison grid. What people need to do right now is put down the video games, wake up and STAND UP.

Mature games, the only games in massive entertainment which, if used right, could be very heavy in political (dis)content.

Better make sure this never gets a chance to happen.

Is there a video game "black market" in Australia? Seems like a possibility with all the restrictions on legal imports.

Of course I disagree with Australia's policy, but I am also wondering how many people who are posting their outrage in comments here are from America, a country where the exact same kind of censorship in media already exists (albeit in a little bit more subtle way which makes it all the more annoying and unacceptable), and where international studies have confirmed that a ranking of nations all over the world with respect to conservative religious views informing public policy decisions places America on a roughly equal basis with various Middle Eastern states?

A government who wants to block internet access to content they decide is undesirable or inappropriate to the constituents of their country? Wow, where have I heard that one before?

In the US, I can still buy any game I want, regardless of rating, online, retail or any other method. I can go anywhere I want on the Internet without the government blocking access. I can criticize Christianity, Islam, aetheism, or wearing the color purple without any fear of jail for so doing. Just about the only thing that is banned is child porn, and I don't have a problem with that. Anything else is available.

The religious right TRIES to shape public policy. They TRY to ban everything in sight. They fail. Every time a "decency law" comes into contact with the Constitution the law is struck down. "Decency" laws are written not with regulation in mind... what they are written for is for political Pharisees to be able to wave under the noses of voters who can't be bothered to study the issues before they vote. "Look what I tried to do! Don't think... FEEL. That always works best! Now quick, go vote for me before you have time to reconsider!"

(This type of Pharisee-ism is not limited to the far right. The far Left does it too, substituting the word "Green" for "Decent". It's the same thing for the same purpose... pandering to people who do not think critically for the purpose of reelection. The difference is that the Green religion has greater traction.)

So yeah, even though we're not perfect I still think I have a deal here that is orders of magnitude better with regard to personal and political freedom than I would have in any Commonwealth nation. At least for today... there are certainly forces at work who are seeking to emulate the "that which is not explicitly permitted is forbidden" surveillance-society of England. What does this have to do with gaming and developing games? ...well, I think Conroy is a perfect example of why Australian subjects and game developers are crippled, professionally creatively and personally. He is an evil man.

But as has been mentioned, the Commonwealth must love the taste of boot. They keep reelecting their masters, so Conroy's position is secure. And from that perspective, what he is doing is the correct thing to do, isn't it?

You know, I think Dave has a point regarding who's responding. I'm an American, so I have to admit that I'm biased by American rights and how we think about the world. So when we hear news like this from Australia, we freak out as it's an anathema to our core beliefs. However, I disagree regarding media in America being censored. While certainly the US government loves to cover up some of what it does, the media are pretty much allowed to report on anything they want. If you want to argue that they're self-censoring information, I'd agree with you on that. However, it's not the same as government-enforced censorship. Especially given the level of censorship being proposed in Australia (and, of course, the industry that's going to get shafted by it).

I'm an Australian, and while I can't speak for the 21,000,000 people here, this is what I've seen about how people get around such bans.

They pirate - this is a post-scarcity age and information is but a mouse click away from absolute replication. While not to incriminate myself too much, but lets just say I've had "access" to games that were either banned from sale or delayed in order to censor them. This of course hurts the local industry.

They order from overseas - quarantine aren't going to check every package. People just order in from overseas and don't care about the ratings. Maybe the games will get stopped on import and restricted, but evidentially not enough from stopping people trying. Again, this hurts our local industry.

They get censored - Games like the Grand Theft Auto series are rewritten so that the 'worst' elements are removed. I'm sure everyone here is aware that it was the Australian censorship that had a global effect on the censorship of Fallout 3. This hurts the developers, having to make regional adjustments because of the absurdity of not having adults-only for an entertainment medium where the average age of gamer is now 30. Again, why buy a watered down version of the game when there are options 1 and 2?


This legislation is in a shambles, the sentiment here is that it won't get passed. It's just that the government is trying to save face by persisting with an idea that is proving to be ineffective and unpopular. The people don't want it, the internet providers don't want it, the technology won't work properly and will easily be subverted (hello bit-torrent) - but for now the government cannot be seen to be simply following opinion polls, so this legislation will hang over our heads until the trials will show it won't work.

"Is it just me, or is the road to hell paved with the good intentions of thinking of the children? "
Well thinking of the parents of the children who will vote for you. It happens every election cycle regardless of who is in charge. The politicians on either side try to sell their security credentials, showing how tough they are on crime or border security (depending on which level of government).

Maybe the ~25 years I've had on this earth has made me somewhat jaded towards the political process, but it's hard to imagine that most politicians have good intentions at hand when they go for election or push policy. Go after what gets them votes, not what's in the best interests of the country or the population therein.

"Once more, Australia follows in England's footsteps towards totalitarianism. Aussies, why do you keep electing people who hold you in such deep contempt? You do realize that political content filtering is next, don't you..."
Believe it or not, this was the lesser of two evils. The last leader we had did a lot to restrict civil rights, and to get elected this current government had to appeal to what were called "Howard's battlers" or what the American politicians kept referring to as "Middle America". These are the swing voters that decide elections, so they are the ones who the politicians go after. The opposition wouldn't really do much better, thus the shambles that democracy can be is exposed... it really is the worst form of government except all those tried before it.


But yeah, there's no real choice and this is considered a minor issue. Getting workers rights, keeping he economy going, making sure the healthcare system is intact and education is world class - all the while keeping our borders safe and improving our infrastructure. Something like this is low enough on the radar that the government can persist with it. It's not a wedge issue as it simply isn't important enough (to the general population) for it to be one.

As for the R rating, there's one politician in state parliament in South Australia who is blocking such a thing.

I would like to elaborate a bit for Lance, Joshua, and perhaps some other people who may be curious as to what I meant by American censorship and conservative religion forming public policy. I should probably get a blog going here and post this info there, but here it is, anyway. I apologize if this bores anyone. I just want to be sure people are aware that America is nowhere near as free with respect to media choice as many people believe. Hopefully, this won't get me blacklisted or anything; my only goal is to share information.


International studies conducted in the social sciences have been collated by scholars such as Ronald Inglehart at the University of Michigan and elsewhere. This was a key element of my graduate course called "Global Women" which discussed diversity of feminist issues in cultures around the world, including issues of public policy that are formed based on a nation's general feelings about religous philosophy rather than any sort of objective stance. One example of a result had the data plotted on a graph charting the progress of social change from religious to secular control on one axis, and survival to self-expression on the other. In general, as societies have become more industrialized, they have moved away from religious governance to secular, and increased their pace of self-expression from survival behaviors and activities. For the record, countries that rank in a similar place to the USA on these axes are Australia, New Zealand, North Ireland, Ireland, and Britain. European countries rank much higher on the religious-secular scale while South Asian countries rank much lower on the survival-self-expression scale. My comment comparing USA to certain Middle Eastern countries was due to other charts which reflect that kind of relationship where different axes of comparison were used (GDP versus religiosity for example). The book I am using as reference is "Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World" by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris. Our professor was originally from Brazil and has been active in various international panels discussing equality and cultural diversity.


As for being able to buy any game or media product in America, this is not quite the case. That is why the American Library Association is continually fighting against the "banned books" list. They are generally successful, but that's with respect to books (an older and well-established media format) and it doesn't mean that you'll be able to buy various books in many locations. In fact, you cannot do so with many types of books, particularly anything containing sexually explict content of various kinds. If they were not continually fighting this battle for you, even titles considered literary classics would be unavailable.

As someone who was part of one (of many) attempts that tried and failed to change what is available to you in the gaming industry, I can tell you that you cannot buy games containing sexually explicit content in America except from extremely limited, specialized dealers. Consider the controversy surrounding the very tame scene in Bioware's "Mass Effect" and you can perhaps see the issue more clearly. The reason you cannot do so is because your choice has been censored by publishers, distributors and retailers. It doesn't matter what the content is, either. It could range from very soft, romantic, consensual relationships that culminate in a mutual expression of love (such as in Mass Effect, but it could be more explicitly depicted) to very hardcore, abusive material, some of which is only possible in fictional settings. People are doing all sorts of stuff for virtual sex in online environments such as Second Life or even certain MMOs, but you do not have the choice of buying an AO rated game off the shelf or through a major online etailer no matter how carefully and tastefully it is packaged for your consumption.


You can see similar examples due to the spread in popularity of Japanese anime around the world, and particularly in America, over the past 15-20 years. Original releases from the early to middle 1990s such as ADV Films first title ever, "Mamono Hunter Yohko" (aka Devil Hunter Yohko) were released here as "unrated" (due to the expense of getting MPAA ratings). However, once anime became popular and gained mainstream attention, companies were forced to offer self-ratings in the interests of "protecting" children from violent and sexual content. This has led American releases of anime such as Card Captor Sakura, a story for very young girls in Japan, created by CLAMP (four women), and starring a main heroine who is 10 years old, to be rated "13 & up" even though any children's literature professor will tell you that the target audience for works aimed at kids is a couple of years YOUNGER than the age of the main character(s). Meanwhile, the DVD re-release of Mamono Hunter Yohko is rated 17+ ... even though Mano Yohko, the main heroine, is 16 years old. Etc.

Of course, the same type of thing happens to various American media, especially media with violent content. For example, some games rated M by the ESRB are rated CERO Z (18+) by Japan's new CERO rating system for console games, even for some games that were created by Japanese developers. On the other hand, one has to wonder how much of that is due to native cultures and how much is caused by American influence both intended and unintended. In my view, Japan and certain other societies have a much freer choice of media content than America and various Western countries, but I think that's because such societies have a much clearer understanding and acceptance of artistic fiction/fantasy versus reality. Of course, this becomes apparent when anyone travels abroad to another country and culture, and experiences things that they'd never think about experiencing in their native land.


Okay... I'm done now... ^_^;;

Oh my - this is SOOOOOO pathetic.

SEX... OK I started to play mummies and daddies or doctors and nurses when I was in grade one....

Great. Had a number of prepubescent gropings and explorations behind the shelter sheds and "down the bushes" behind the footy oval. Hit puberty or sexually matured enough to begin breeding at 14 and went for it hammer and tong, and have never looked back.

Now the cultists in the second hand jewish religion called christianity - of which none practice any of the "original" (?) religions customs (cheese and bacon burger anyone?) are pushing for the family friendly "ratings system", when their own alleged founder said he was going to come back and take to use all with a sword and burn the rest in flaming pits.

Since I am supposed to be ashamed of my body and my sinful nightly emissions and my joy of masturbation (which I am really good at by the way) and I am an inherantly hard wired sexual being, just like the other monkeys, dogs, cats, blow flies, fish, ants, fungus and bacteria etc, now these cultists - are going to start dictating the definitions of "explicit"?

Like is a provocative pose of the "cartoon characters" pouting open mouth provocative only really arousing IF the vagina, penis or anus, which may or may not be viewed, either by it's self or in use; is viewed as well.

Hmmmmmmm Now we see ourselves naked, we see our friends and family naked, we see our sexual intimates naked, and now we are not supposed to be seeing games where the cartoon characters are naked?

Ohhhh OK. I get it - the religious cultists are expecting us to abide by their really insane standards, that they set for us, in order to control us... through shame, guilt, fear, intimidation and humiliation; so that we too can be well adjusted like them.

Let me see wasn't it a pack of religious people with names like Bush, Wolfowitz, Cheney, John Howard and the people in the Australian Liberal Party, and Tony Blair and Co., who lied to use about the non existant Weapons of Mass Destruction? - and started to escalate the long standing sanctions against the people of Iraq - which killed millions of people there; into a war - for the oil in that country?

Oh I understand the big lie now - the people up to all this bad stuff are only bad if it's "them" doing it and not us. Cause if it's US doing it, it's fine and can be covered up with all sorts of whackjob excuses, such as, "We are doing it for the protection of our national interests" etc. - or "It's for your own good".

I tend to play only fairly retarded games like "Warzone 2100" (something like Red Alert), or user written games of Doom 2 - for the really interesting scenery; but I really think censors ought to be made to feel as if they are not in the least bit welcome to stick their views down other peoples throats.

"Oh nooooo the car shase game has an animated sex scene in it!!!! Shriek...... well so what. Again the ministrations of the cult called christianity, and the equally infantile press jump on board that one.

That for me just gives me more reasons never to participate in the rituals of that cult or buy the magazines or news papers that run that kind of sensationalised drivel, if only to make more sales.

Ugghhh spare me, If the people who choose to censor anything, try to stick it down my or anyone else's throat - whether it be a US lead sanction of technology against other countries, or online gaming - I'd support the principle of circumventing that corporate or religious or government oppression.

Why? Because it's not their place to be standing over peoples right to exercise reasonable choices in their participation in our global community.

@Lance Rund

Here is a question, but do you truely believe america is a free country? The reason for the question stem from the fact that here in america we're always having our lives being regulated by the government both economically and socially; Look at the push for new hate crime laws, laws against smoking, etc.

As for religion play a role in regulating games and such, I wouldn't say this. Alot of these anti-game laws(like many other ridiculous laws) are born out of social panic and collectivism. Look at the gun-control movement, the anti-smoking movement, etc...all born out of social panic.

As for austraila, it doesn't suprise me given the fact the country have been flerting with fascism for the longest.

Why am I not suprised?

In a lot of ways it's really the children paying for the sins of the parents. Our high court isn't able to defend our right to view such media because we lack a bill of rights in our constitution, even worse this has been repeatedly raised and turned down, in fact it had to "imply" that we have the right to political freedom of speech on several occasions (on the grounds that we are, at least in theory, a democracy). So basically if the ACMA wants to shut something down, they usually can.

@Frank Smith
But to think that Australian people aren't fighting back is ignorant of our current political climate. There are good reasons Conroy has been hit with some serious flak of late. It's kinda sad to see that our Minister for Coms, basically doesn't know anything about them. Unfortunately our biggest opposition to his removal is actually the elderly in our country, which in past referendums have proven incredibly resistant to change. If steven conroy goes on TV and bandies "for the children" and proposes changes that for the most part don't affect them, then they're happy to give him thier vote.