It’s been awhile since we at Geek Actually had a go at the Australian Federal Government, but something new just came up and here we go again. The Sydney Morning Herald had an interesting article today, which you can read here.
In a nutshell (and I am paraphrasing a lot), Stephen Conroy (The Federal Communications Minister) has announced that the internet censorship program, that is currently being tested in Australia by nine ISPs, will be broadening it’s scope to include online games. That’s right, games like World of Warcraft and Second Life suddenly have a cloud of uncertainty in Australia because the online aspects of the games don’t carry an Australian rating and therefore are technically illegal here.
The scope goes even wider though as it will also affect downloadable games, flash-based games and sites that sell games from overseas. As we have mentioned many times on the Geek Actually podcast, Australia is the only developed country to not have an R18+ rating for games, even though the average age of gamers here is 30 (according to research commissioned by the IEAA (Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia))! This means that if a game is deemed to much for an MA15+ rating it is refused classification (RC), essentially being banned.
Under the new censorship laws, adults who would like to purchase or play an adult oriented game online will not be able to. I will mention again that we are the only developed country in the world that does not have some kind of adult classification for games.
If you are mad about this, do something! Write to your Federal Minister and voice your concern.
The argument that the government has been using for years has always been that children might get their hands on this evil stuff. This is a stupid and ignorant argument that makes no sense when you consider that you can have R18+ movies in your house. Maybe a little parental supervision is needed if you are worried that your children might play the game. They certainly wouldn’t be able to buy the game if it had the proper age appropriate classification on it.
Ron Curry, Chief Executive of the IEAA summed it up in the above mentioned article by saying, “It’s through the introduction of an R18+ classification that adults will have access to age appropriate material and parents will have the full toolkit to understand the suitability of content for their children.”
On a lighter note, Stephen Conroy has been nominated by the British ISP industry for its annual “Internet Villain” award. His competition is the European Parliament and Nicolas Sarkozy. Good luck Mr. Conroy, I hope you win, you deserve it.
