Those primitive, decrepit cow’s we have elected as our political representatives, and who have, unfortunately, been thrust into a position to dictate the direction of media content in Australia; have absolutely no idea of the effect their blind, rather desperate and outdated model of legislation is having on the games market in Australia. And, just to reiterate what I think of our politician’s in charge of rating games and regulating the OFLC click this.
The “Oh my god! Save the children” solution of games contraband no longer works in an era where the most savvy media users are the children; if they wish to obtain a game, they will get it some way or another, the publicity of a banned game only entices children more.
This overbearing culture of overprotectiveness is blatantly obvious in all area’s of Australia. It is unfortunate that the controlling class of people in Australia are just as primitive and decrepit as our representative click this. And this was yet again shown in a rather lopsided “game-bashing” Q&A last Thursday (24/07).
The panel’s ignorance is quite amazing. Not only do they talk about it as if there wasn’t an overbearing ratings system for games already apparent, but they compared it to “snuff films”… Are you serious?! That’s like comparing an orange fruit to a small Peruvian dog cutter – there isn’t a comparison.
Another important thing to note – the audience member that asked the question, editor of GameArena, “Jaoby”, was also a douche… It took another audience members interjections for there to be any weight added to support the creation of an R rating for games. Unfortunately, with the comparison to pokies, games were completely brushed aside and gambling became the next topic. Typical reaction to games in Australia – they are just games – then how come we regulate them so stringently.
However, “Jaoby” did have this to say after,
“As you can see, what happened was far from a serious discussion on the merits of an R Rating for video games and government censorship. Instead, at large, the panelists were led into a discussion of violent video games and, due to archaic views of the average gamer, the discussion primarily devolved into the same “protect the children” commentary the public has heard for years.
Fortunately, what occurred on the show only served to highlight the exact issue at hand… Due to the format of the show it was nigh on impossible for me to refute even the more ludicrous and fantastic claims (Avatar: the rape game by Barnaby Joyce was particularly hard to keep quiet about) meaning the show simply continued to propagate the same antiquated idea already present in the general media about video games.”
A lot of this has already been discussed in GamePolitics though, here.
Back onto the rather amusing show of so called panel experts, I would challenge any of you (or… nobody reading) to find consistent scientific research to support the fact that, interactive, experiential and voilent games causes mentally healthy people to behave more voilently.
I’ve tried and I can’t find any…
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