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Grand Theft Auto Still Banned Down Under
SicariusMan sent us a CNN story that talks about australia upholding the ban on GTA3. It's been
mentioned here before, but
its interesting that its gonna stick. GTA3 really is perhaps the best PS2 game out in recent memory.
I'm having a PS2 resurgance of late, beating Klonoa2, MGS2, Baldur's Gate: Dark
Alliance, and getting hooked on Jak and Daxter and Frequency. And
GTA3 is easily among the best of PS2 games. Sorry .au! At least
they probably won't ban FFX!
This is what we like to see. .au has seen the draconian legislation that the US and the EU have started trying to bring about and want to join in the party?
:)
Governments protecting us from playing things that are naughty.
Thought police strike again. Anyone think that
Well, as long as you can still buy pr0n, I guess that's ok
of Carmageddon spring to mind...
Why does it seem automobile related destruction of life and limb garners so much censorship?
We kill 50,000+ people a year on the streets as it is!
For those who have seen the classic Sean Connery James Bond film "Goldfinger" there is a quote I always found amusing...
JB: Incidently, Delta-9 nerve gas is fatal- you'll kill 45,000 people.
GF: Ha! American motorists kill that many every 2 years!"
Now we hit that mark in under a year...
Oh you mean like in Europe and practically in every other western democracy?
Besides that's a "Slippery Slope" logical fallacy.
What about WWII movies like Saving Private Ryan? Since they are killing surely everyone else will. If people cannot draw the distinction between reality and entertainment there is no video game, movie or anything else that will change that. The word sociopath came from those type of people. So banning something because a few (who argueably will do something wrong anyway) may take it seriously is not only stupid but a complete waste of time. By the Au's contention banning ALL violence should remove it completely from society. Didnt that work for the Taliban?
The used Australia because they ran out of room in Georgia.
It's not the concept of stealing cars, or such films as "Gone in 60 seconds" would be banned... It is the concept of rape, assault, etc.
"As for the Aussies, they are down the path of giving up personal liberties for the "greater good"."
Oh, you mean like FBI spyware? Hey, wait, that was the USA...
"Since they banned guns thei crime rate has steadily risen. Good job!"
That is just bullshit made up by some NRA wanker in the USA to 'convince' the gullible idiots of the US to feel you need a semi-auto weapon to walk the streets. Can you provide any evidence to back up your (bullshit) claims.
Get your heads out of your arses America. Open yours eyes to what REALLY happens in the rest of the world. Don't just make up bullshit to make your self-given title of "land of the free" seem more real.
You have no more freedom then I do.
but just too desensitizing for most people to handle.
Oh, for most people it's desensitizing, but not you? Seriously, fuck you for telling people what they can't handle. Who the hell do you think you are?
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
That's true, but consider this, people generally look to games and movies as an expression of fantasy or an outlet. Most humans have core interests to do illegal things. I'd prefer that people vent these interests into video games then letting them bottle up until they "snap". I've played many violent and gruesome video games and I thoroughly enjoyed the Die Hard movies, and things of the like. But I'm just a normal working guy, I don't blow things up, don't steal cars, and I pay my taxes. So I think the problem is that the people that go out of line either have chemical imbalances (natural or recreationally induced) or are in need of support from responsible people at stages in their development. Your thoughts?
Erm, if you're going to boycott countries for having Draconian laws, you're going to be boycotting every single country ever.
Assuming you live where your whois records say, you aren't qualified to comment on other nation's beer output, I'm afraid ;-)
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
First, I must confess to playing, as well as enjoying, such violent games as GTA3.
But, I must commend, yes commend, the Australian government for this latest action. I can definitely see their point in not wanting to promote such violence or desensitize anyone of the horific nature of such violence. The government will take a lot of heat for this and I admire their strength to face this heat.
Let's face it. Society and certainly the entertainment industry has increasingly glorified this type of violence. I don't believe that people, except for a very sick few, commit such violence because of movies of video games but, I do think that they are desensitized by the constant onslaught of such violent entertainment.
The Australian government is, contrary to the usual posts here, not significantly restricting freedom of speech or movement. They are simply restricting a single excessively violent video game that portrays socially abhorent behavior.
The social and moral values of the free world have degraded dramatically over the years and I don't think that it is a good thing. Would your parents or grandparents have discuused killing someone as we freely and easily do on a daily basis? When last did you say, "I'm gonna kill you!"? Think about what that statement means and then tell me that you have not been desensitized? So, why then do we take amusement from beating up or killing old people?
The people of Australia and the freeworld, for that matter, can definitely make and play higly enjoyable video games without such antisocial violence.
Your Grandmother just got killed in a car jacking. How funny and entertaining is that?
Yes, you can pick up a prostitute. Yes, you can kill (and rob) her or anyone else. Yes, if you push R2-R2-L1-R2-Left-Down-Right-Up-Left-Down-Right-Up you'll get every weapon possible, including a rocket launcher you can use to take down the police helicopter(s) that will eventually arrive. Yes, you can light people on fire with a flamethrower. Yes, when the national guard comes it is possible to steal their tank and drive around the city crushing things.
.AU here; this game was pulled from stores in America too and it's only back now because they've been forced to tone it down a bit.
By the fact that the game is selling, it's pretty clear that people WANT to play this kind of game. The government is supposedly there to serve the people (according to Jefferson, governments are created to protect our inalienable rights). How does taking something away serve them? The few people who are unable to tell a game from reality, and who go on GTA-style killing sprees in the real world as a result of this game, are probably lunatics anyway who would've eventually snapped anyway. Why shouldn't I (and my reality-and-games distinguishing friends) be allowed to play this game now?
A side note, however: Lets not just focus on
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
Software censorship isn't geek enough for you?
Since they banned guns thei crime rate has steadily risen. Good job!
... I'm sure crimes related to guns have dropped dramatically. And eventhough there are less murders/deaths in a crime, the crime rate can still go up due to increases in theft, fraud, and smaller forms of crime. It all depends on how you measure crime.
Sorry, I can't help but laugh at that statement.
I'm also VERY interested in seeing those statistics
But to me that comment screams of a bullshit stat., at least you did not write a number as well...
>As for the Aussies, they are down the path of
>giving up personal liberties for the "greater
>good". Since they banned guns theircrime rate
>has steadily risen. Good job!
I understand that censorship is bad and that deciding what constitutes reasonable entertainment is not the governments job. But i entirely disagree with your use of term "personal liberties" especially when referring to guns and when putting down Australia.
The idea of civil liberties is basically that all those actions which do not cause direct harm to others should be permitted and the government does not have the right to intrude into the personal life of it's citizens. In this field the U.S. is perhaps the worse offender among democratic nations. I would draw your attention particularily to the Anti-Terrorist Bill which has been pushed through in the past few months which basically signs away the rights and liberties of every American in the name of national security.
The right to own a video game is an issue of civil liberties. It involves deciding what you want to do in the privacy of your own home to entertain yourself.
The right to own a handgun is not an issue of civil liberties. A handgun, unlike a videogame, is a machine made to kill human beings, it serves no other purpose. This is not a machine that anyone should be permitted to carry around with them, and you can shout about personal freedom all you want. The "right to bear arms" is a freak of American Legislation born from the fact that America is a nation founded upon a violent revolution. It is NOT a basic human right.
And as for your figures about Australia's crime rate: The crime rate has only increased because of the number of people who have been arrested for illegally owning handguns. The number of handgun related murders has steadily decreased since the ban was instated.
lysergically yours
No. Read the article headline. "Grand Theft Auto Still Banned Down Under." The previous poster was making a joke by delibrately choosing to confuse the name of the video game "Grand Theft Auto" with the name of the actual crime "Grand Theft Auto". The joke utilizes the confusion to paint the absurd image of a news headline about the banning of something that's widely accepted as an outright criminal offense -- unlike, say, P2P filesharing, guns, or abortion, you don't have people arguing over whether or not the government should try to stop it.
Er... Just for whom's entertainment do you play games for? I play them for my own entertainment, and I'd imagine your child would do the same.
In France, you can't buy nazy items, cannot say things pro-racism..
I'm french so I'm problably LESS aware of the things forbidden in France which are legal elsewhere..
Is oral and anal sex still "banned" in some states of the USA?
I've always found funny than the "land of freedom" would ban those things..
Australia is banning a videogame ??
What is "big news" here??