Aussies Ban GTA3

KITT_KATT!* writes: "Australia has banned Grand Theft Auto 3 for PS2. This is a tragedy for Australian gamers! According to this story in Australian IT, the problem is that there is no R rating for games - MA15+ is the highest permissible and GTA3 exceeds that because it contains scenes of sexual violence." Aren't you glad Australia has a helpful rating system?

Comments

Re:Cant say I'm too disappointed here.

[91degrees]

Well.. Strictly speaking its not DMA who did that. It was whoever was playing it who did it. The game allows you to beat innocent people up, and then steal their money, and also allows you to have sex with prostitutes, but does not require you to do this in order to complete the game. Clearly only a sick twisted mind would actually attempt to do this.

Re:Future of videogames

[Dyolf Knip]

Indeed. A Star Trek holodeck program would be rated X, no matter what it's supposed to be. There's simply too much freedom of action to slap a label on it. In our quest for realistic gaming experiences, we are rapidly approaching a level at which you can do virtually anything you want within the theme of the game. And what will things be like after that?

What about strategy games? Should it be illegal to raze a virtual city and kill its inhabitants, especially when some of them have real-life counterparts? What is the criteria that censors use to say that computer generated violence is unacceptable? Anyone who's played Master of Orion is familiar with sterilizing entire planets, how is that OK but the CG killing of single person (there have been more people killed on TV than exist on planet Earth) is banned? None of it is real anyway.

Re:Future of videogames

[Eric S Raymond]

because destroying a planet, as in star wars, etc.. is somehow supposed to be impersonal; you do not know all those people or ever meet them; yet in this game, you have sex with a prostitute, which by itself could offend some people, but then you kill her, and it is very graphical shown up close in detail.