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Graffiti Game Banned in Australia
afaik_ianal writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that 'Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure' has been banned in Australia. The game involves battling the authorities to overthrow corrupt officials using only street fighting skills and graffiti. From the article, "The decision was endorsed last night by the Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, who had asked the board to review of the game's MA15+ classification after local councils and state governments voiced concerns that the game would promote graffiti.""
Again, another government stepping in where parents and society in general should be the authority.
Isn't it ironic though that the point of the game is to fight government corruption and promote freedom of expression.
I guess kids will have to stick to the real thing.
I think we have long gone past the point were censorship of this nature will have any effect. What with bittorrent and other P2P networks, people will still be able to obtain copies. And by making such a big deal of it, all the authorities have done is made it into the latest 'must have' computer game.
And I would love to read their position paper (which will apparently get relaeased) soon that explains the majority and minority positions. I cannot understand how they feel that they should ban this game and yet allow violent movies to not be banned.
...that they were concerned the game would promote THE OTHER aspect of the gameplay?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
So Spraying a tag on a wall is worse than the old knee-to-the-solar-plexus move? Chigago-Curb-Job? Columbian Necktie?
That makes me very sad. We teach our kids that violence is cool, acceptable, exciting, fun.
Then we complain about all the violence in the streets.
If you want to ban a game, please ban it for excessive violence, not for some paint sprayed on walls.
The Bigger The Headache The Bigger the Pill
I'm in a bind about this. What most people don't know is that Australia lacks an Adults only game rating, so any game unsuitable for people between 16 and 17 must be banned, as 15+ is the hardest rating. This was the reason for the banning of games such as GTA3 (before changes) and BMX XXX. I'm torn on this issue, because I don't believe these games are suitable for kids under 18, and so by Aussie law, they're banned. Sure, it's up to the parents, but a game can't be rated 18+, so any 16yo would be able to get his hands on any game without parental consent. In summary, the ban is correct under Australian law (we should by no means lower the rating of titles to get them oin shelves), but the OFLC needs an 18+ rating, pronto.
There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary, and nine other kinds of people.
I've got an idea for a character in the next version of the game.
But seriously, most of the games out there promote violence, road rage, all kinds of stuff, and they can still be sold. What makes graffiti so important?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
No you don't, at least not in Sydney. Anyway I don't see how something like this *really* actually fuels graffiti. I'm one of those people who thinks that GTA doesn't fuel people going around shooting everybody, and like the designer said, it's not that hard to draw on a wall, and if a kid wants to do it he doesn't need a game to show him how.
Quoth the Simpsons:
Meyers: I did a little research and I discovered a startling thing...
There was violence in the past, long before cartoons were invented.
Kent: I see. Fascinating.
Meyers: Yeah, and know something, Kent? The Crusades, for instance.
Tremendous violence, many people killed, the darned thing went
on for thirty years.
Kent: And this was before cartoons were invented?
Meyers: That's right, Kent.
It used to be music that everyone said was a bad influence, now it is Video games.
I love the following Frank Zappa quotation.
"There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do
something we'd all love one another."
-- Frank Zappa
Not exactly the same, but close enough if we replace love songs with first person shooters and....
Nevermind
The real issue, once again, is that Australia don't have the equivalent of the UK's "18" or US "M" for games, so the highest possible rating is the aforementioned MA15+. So games like the GTA series are already banned there.
Since the game involves just as much violence against policemen as GTA does, and the only non-violent aspect to the game is the vandalism, my only surprise is that they considered it possible for an MA15+ in the first place.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Was Jet Set Radio banned in Australia?
Jet Set Radio Future.
And it was done better than this dreck will be.
Read Errant Story.
What they have basically done, then, is turned this game into an instant automatic hit. Everybody in Australia will want a copy of this game now, because it's illegal. And they will get copies of it. Either paid-up ones, sent in an innocuous music CD box by friends or relatives abroad; or, much more likely, pirated copies. {Does anybody actually pay for games? I suppose there must be one or two.} Everybody outside Australia will want a copy because it's been banned in Australia.
All things considered, this is a fantastic marketing stunt.
My proposed solution, by the way, is to ban all sales of video games to {but not possession by} minors. That way, parents and guardians get to decide what is and isn't appropriate.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I've never understood the whole idea behind banning video games and trying to blame them for various social problems. That's giving games much more influential power than they, or any form of media, ever has had. Really, if someone decides to spray paint just because they've been playing this game, they have other problems unrelated to video games. Parents should be regulating the games that come into their home, because they are the only ones who know if THEIR child is mature enough to understand them. It's not up to the government... And plus, the people in power today see video games as "new" and "confusing." Maybe when people raised on Atari, Nintendo, etc gain political power, we won't see such a witch-hunt on games.
So it's ok to "promote" shooting people, running people down and using / abusing prostitutes (GTA and plenty of others)but it's not ok to "promote" tagging a wall.
GTA was banned in Australia too
Hmmmm we have a very weird society.
I'm not sure whether you're talking about the USA or Australia - you seem a little confused. (but yes, they're both quite weird)
My pics.
I lived in Melbourne for nearly five years, and I used to really enjoy looking at the graffiti whilst on boring train journeys. I'd MUCH rather look at the graffiti - some of which is absolutely amazing - than a plain, blank grey wall for an hour, but that's just me I suppose.
It would be a much better use of time if they could stop the trains on the Frankston line smelling like stale piss.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
From someone who lives here, here's the deal with what gets banned (as in games), and the GTA oddities: GTA 3 was released here, uncut. Then they found out about the prostitutes, and revoked classification- forcing a recall
After this, the game was edited to remove the prostitute functionality and re-released, conforming to Aus standards. The reason the prostitutes were removed was NOT because of the sexual content, rather, it was because of the very strict rules we have here about sex and violence. It was the fact you could kill hookers after sex that had the game censored.
Vice city was pre-edited by the developers and had NO sex (the Candy Suxx FMV's were fucked up) Pardon the pun.
GTA:SA came out WITH hookers, unedited. I have no idea how/why this happened.
Generally games are censored here when sex and violence is mixed, IN ANY WAY. Duke Nukem 3D was censored because you could shoot the strippers.
I dont understand the logic of this banning though
R & X cannot be used to classify games - MA is the maximum. From your link (emphasis mine): "Films and computer games are now classified G, PG, M or MA 15+. Films can also be classified R 18+ or X 18+. R 18+ and X 18+ are not classifications for computer games."
In Japan, no game really gets publically banned for being violent or degrading (other than the pubes-mosiac thing), but then there is little violence in society and next to no graffiti. There is no fear of violence ever influencing anybody.
The logic goes that maybe if there was less graffiti and less violence in Australia, then we could have violent games and nobody would care about any influence.
Seems to me that the outside world influences video games more than the other way around.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
The only differences this decision will have on the game in Australia are:
1. Increased popularity of the game
2. Lower profits to the manufacturer
3. Larger US/AU bandwidth usage for a few weeks.
That's about it really.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
And from that day forward no graffiti was ever sprayed on the walls of Australia again. The clean grey concrete canyons were the envy of the rest of the world where no other nation had the foresight to ban this evil computer game.
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can leave until the day after.
The difference is that most kids know that killing is wrong, and won't kill someone because of that (as opposed to not killing someone solely because they might get caught). But a lot of kids put graffiti in the same category as underage smoking/drinking, smoking marijuana, shoplifting, and other nonviolent offenses. Nobody gets injured by graffiti and vandalism, so it seems more like a victimless crime, and so a kid's sense of morality is more likely to be swayed by peer pressure and media influence.
I'm not saying the game should be banned. Freedom of speech and all that. But I am saying that games like Getting Up and Tony Hawk's Underground 2 should be rated closer to the adult end of the scale by the ESRB and that retailers should take this rating into account when selling games directly to minors. I'm also saying that developers should think about the impact that their work has on society and make an informed decision about whether they're handling things responsibly, rather than just thinking, "Man, this is sweet!" and charging forward.