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New Aliens Vs. Predator Game Doesn't Make It Past AU Ratings Board
An anonymous reader writes "Australia refused to give Rebellion's new Aliens Vs. Predator game a rating, effectively banning it in the country. Rebellion says it won't be submitting an edited version for another round of classifications, however. (As Valve did with Left 4 Dead 2.) They said, 'We will not be releasing a sanitized or cut down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices.'"
I am a fish ^^
Refusal to put up with bullshit like Australia and Germany's ratings boards is the only way to bring them down. Tolerance for censorship only breeds familiarity and further tolerance.
I think more games should be banned, especially popular ones, it's the only way something will eventually get done about it. Most people don't do anything until they get a kick in the arse.
And also this will hopefully let more people know about importing and digital distribution.
I'll be importing or buying it from Steam anyway, but I wonder if there will be any official Australian servers, might have to make do with New Zealand ones.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
People who really want the game will just have it shipped in from a sane country.
"We will not be releasing a sanitized or cut down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices."
That is the proper response. Good Job, Rebellion. I hope other developers follow your lead. I have a hunch there will be a lot of piracy of the game in Australia... but I guess it really won't be hurting their sales, will it? I wonder if they'll allow online play from Australia?
I'm glad developers are taking a stand and refusing to sugar coat their games.
When Australians decide to start acting like adults they can do something about their government. Meanwhile the rest of the world's people will continue to make make choices for themselves.
I am so Hyped for this game.
The fact that they are even rating it makes me giddy.
Quick explanation: Pretty much most of Australia would be happy to have an 'R' rating for computer games.
This guy (Michael Atkinson), however would not. He has the power to veto it and continues to do so.
Due to his geographical location, there's bugger all the majority of Australia can do about it from a voting perspective.
I don't blame game publishers for not releasing stuff here. Effectively we're all just waiting for 'Nanny' Atkinson to become senile and finally leave his post as South Australia's attorney general.
The thing that really worries me is how come they have this veto power for things like this in the first place....
I am sure that Australians that wanted to purchase and play this game, in Australia, will be disappointed, but I am very interested in seeing where this goes. If I were running a business internationally and a country put up artificial obstacles, I would cut ties immediately. It is issues like this that pushes the prices of all types of good higher and higher. There are too many different requirements from country to country and nanny states like Australia makes it all worse. Hell, I had to purchase a friend a copy of L4D2(I am in the USA, he is in Australia) so that he could play the games as it was meant to be played. Now, he has purchased two copies of the same game, which is beyond ridiculous. Perhaps, if more game studios refuse to playing by Australia's nonsense rules, there will be quick change to their rating standards.
Despite the fact that many video gamers want a R18+ rating in Australia for video games like there is in movies, and there is near unanimous to implement one, the Attorney General of South Australia (heavy Christian Conservative) doesn't approve, so it cant go through. It should be based on majority, not need for unanimity. Its not a jury, and doesnt require measures from one.
As an American who moved to Australia a few years ago and married into citizenship, I actually support Australia's strong stance against violent video games and a violent society. The contrast is especially strong when you return to the states for a month or two.
What people generally don't seem to get is that violence is promoted by the mass media to make a quick buck. People here who want to get this game will, just as they will anything else out there -- but there's a difference between getting that in the underground and mass marketing it to society in a race to the bottom for a quarterly profit.
While AvP might not be the most violent video game out there, at least we have a line drawn in the sand. People even in their 20's and 30's grew up playing "games" of execution (Mortal Kombat) and mass murder simulators (Doom), alienating us from society.
But since then, we've had children, and we don't want our children to grow up with the wrongs we grew up with, especially since they get worse as time goes on.
What Australia is doing is really no different of a public safety measure than requiring seat belts in cars and enforcing people wearing it. Call that "Nanny State" all you want, and dream of days without it, but it saved and still saves lives.
It's not a popular opinion, so rate me down, do what you want, but I'm speaking how I and most other Australians I know feel.
Any evidence that this ban on games has had any effect on crime rates in Austalia? Compared with a similar sized country with no strict censorship? Just interested actually, as I have no idea if there is any evidence.
If a ratings board bans their game, even if it's a derivative piece of movie-spawned crap, it's pure gold for marketing. There's no way that the Australian government is going to block kids from getting the game...they will find a way one way or the other. But they're definitely doing yeoman's work in promoting the game everywhere by giving it a big "bad" rating. All the ratings system does is provide a free benchmark for a particular genre to strive for because they know that's what will turn heads and sell their product.
I know that if I were representing the company for this product, I'd be scheduling a big party to celebrate the rating and ban, not trying to make a political/free speech point out of it. The ratings system is an amazing helping hand to this particular venue.
I would expect a headline when something does make it past the ratings board, not when it's rejected - much too common now.
I know it might come as shock to some here but Australia doesn't want to be like America!. Most Australians dont see being able to own a gun as "freedom" and despite participating in Iraq Australians generally have a different attitude to war. I dont completely agree with the game censorship, but we need to draw the line somewhere.
Violent games don't turn kids into violent criminal. But bad parenting (or no parenting at all!) sure can.
Every time I hear: "Oh, my Johnny was such a nice boy, until he played those violent games. They turned him into a violent rapist and killer!"
I would like to respond: "No, lady, you did a crap job as a parent. He would have ended up that way anyway, without violent games."
People don't like to accept that fact that it is their own fault for how their kids grow up.
For politicians, it is easier to point a finger at the games companies. They don't have the courage to tell the general public: "Look, please spend more time with your children." That would be political suicide.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I'm sure this will get played up eventually. Remember when that crappy game Bully was pulled from certain shelves? Banning stuff seems to make it more desirable to complete dimwits.
Even stuff that has never been banned from anything ever, but has implications of being banned is somehow more desirable. Consider that Affliction MMA special "Banned" from a few years back. I was in college at the time, and it seemed every cement head obsessed with mixed martial arts was going on and on about wanting to buy new special that had been "banned just about everywhere, bro" (or sometimes, "brah").
I sincerely doubt the devs are worried. In fact, they're probably pray for some retail chain in the states to "ban" selling the title.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
... the honest, hard-working pirates of Australia (and maybe the world) will dutifully punish them for not properly distributing their game.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Ill be picking up a copy just for support. Its about time childish governments were treated like children.
Thus derailing the whole democratic process.
It's already derailed, at least in the United States. The general public tend to choose among the top two to four candidates that have been on national TV. The TV news networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC) control which candidates can be on national TV, and they're all MPAA members. Of course they won't give screen time to any candidate that won't toe the copyright industry's party line.
And what about when you realize the banning is largely symbolic because the game can easily be ordered online?
And have customs stop it at the border.
The extreme violence the US suffers is the result of NOT having the nanny-state. Except it has NOTHING to do with censorship on its own, but rather the "I want to do everything I want to do and nobody can stop me or expect anything from me" attitude. It is the attitude where the Simpsons are not seen as a parody but as a role model.
Since the 19th century we have moved slowly to a society where parents want things to be different from how things were for them. And I am NOT talking about improved living standards, schooling etc etc. Rather, more and more parents want fewer rules for their kids, to be more friendly with them and even, remain kids themselves. In previous times, kids were mini-adults, dressing the same as their elders as soon as possible and giving gradually the some responsibilities and chores. A kid was an adult to be. Now remaining a child has become an option.
On its own, there seems little wrong with this, until you realize what being a teenage rebel is all about. A teenager must rebel against the rules of his society. What people then get wrong is that they think it matters what those rules are. It does not. You can give a teenager a curfew of 21:00, 23:00 or even 3:00. A teen WILL attempt to push beyond it. Give the teen no curfew whatsoever and what must they then break? Stay out for several days?
It is in a way like the speed limit. It doesn't really matter how high you set it, people will still speed. You can of course argue to remove the speed limit altogether, but then people will just drive on the wrong side of the road. Remove all road rules? We introduced them for a reason. Ain't very handy to drive 120km/h and not be certain others will NOT be coming your way at the same speed.
When you see stories like "kid kills brother for x-box", this has NOTHING to do with gaming. You just have a kid who has never learned restraint. That you can't always get what you want when you want it. Censorship of games doesn't work, after all the same things happen over shoes and how violent can shoes be?
Violence doesn't teach kids to be violent, it is parents who are still acting as children themselves who haven't taught their kids ANYTHING, that causes violence. And this is not an instant process, it has been going on for many generations.
To those who applaud the increased rebellion and lack of rules, you forget, you can't rebel against no rules whatsoever. Society needs people who defy the rules but it also needs people to create new rules to keep society working.
"If I have furthest, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants". Nice quote, but most people then think those giants are other great visionaries, leaders, rebels. Nope. Einstein stood on the shoulders of the baker who baked his bread. His mother, who breastfed him. His teacher who changed his pants when he peed himself on his first day in school. The cop that kept him from being killed by highwaymen (what highwaymen you ask? Exactly) long before he even started thinking.
Society needs a core that works well. On it, a small group of people can rebel, push the limits etc etc. Hippies need the protection of the soldiers willing to die to defend them. Those soldiers of course also need someone to speak out against their lives being used for political gaines. It is how society works, or rather worked.
Or maybe it still works and we just pay more attention to the rumblings of the machinery these days. Extreme violence has gone on since the dawn of humanity, even chimps hunt and slaughter not for food but for the thrill of it.
But knee-jerk reactions by blaming something for all societies wrongs are as old as time as well. Society is collapsing, kill some christians!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Nanny State.
Refusal to put up with bullshit like Australia and Germany's ratings boards is the only way to bring them down. Tolerance for censorship only breeds familiarity and further tolerance.
But the censoryhip of naked breasts/problematic concepts in america is ok?
so people in aus can download it and not be a pirate?
at lest pc's don't have region lock out.
aliens vs predator board game doesnt make it past au ratings ...
about right.
if you, and everyone you know stands up for the truth; so that every jury rejects the false criminalisation and anal rape of non violent political prisoners, the old generation of greedy sado moralists will die together with their cannabis will be legalised; the future generations will look back at our contradictory confusion with bemusement.
Why? Why do you have to draw the line somewhere? You are talking about a line where some adults get to tell other adults what material is safe for them to see?
There will be a black market for AvP now. You will go down town and find a drug dealer and be all like "yo homie, can I have a pack of death sticks? - Oh, and do you have a copy of AvP as well?"
The ban hammer situation on games here in Australia is a joke. The situation is made mostly because the peps I voted for won't introduce an R18+ rating for games.
I find it odd - I can obtain content of women and men (real, organic, breathing) engaging in activities many would find disturbing. I am legally allowed to do that. I am not legally allowed to do anything perverse in the digital world. That sex educator game I've always wanted will be illegal before a single line of code is written.
Mind you I am one of a minority group and would say most things is A-OK in the digital world. Yes yes. I want baby shaker app on the Wii with a bluetooth rag doll and loads of sensors. Bonus points for exposing said doll to 10G, 50kg of pressure and drowning.
It seems to me that there's an amusing lag in regulatory / legal processes. Seems like if you're an MP or a judge, the dangerous, illegal, subversive stuff if "Stuff that's happened since I was 21". The established Right Way that we all acknowledge as Truth is "How things were before I was 21". In a decade or two we're perhaps going to see MPs who have a more realistic attitude to internet censorship, copyright, etc (modulo lobbying by business, of course!) and the terrifying new technology that's corrupting our children will be augmented reality, neural uplinks, or fully functional Terminators or something - whatever the alarmingly young and unruly kids are currently playing with.
As others have noted, it's apparently not possible to assign 18+ (or equivalent) ratings to games in Australia, so it's not necessarily like the classification people are censoring it - you make a game that "should" have an 18+ rating, they're not able to give it that, they have no choice but to refuse classification. Who is responsible for this rule? It's they who is/are responsible for the video games being banned.
On one hand, I must applaud the integrity of a company that decides not to alter it's product to get around a stupid ban like this.
On the other hand, AvP is one of my least favorite franchises, and I wish it would just disappear and let us return to two totally seperate universes.
They are simply USK 18 or whatever it is called. Now censorship of nazi stuff is another can of worm imposed by the ally for the most and never repelled after they left (heck, imagine germany repelling those law, and all EU country MIGHT rise and maybe Israel MIGHT scream in anger. Safer for germany jsut to leave them, as they aren#t really damaging anybody TBH).
When they filmed their marionette sex scene for "Team America", Trey Parker and Matt Stone put in some crazy shit - literally. (And this was prior to the "Two Girls One Cup" phenomena :) They knew that the censors would not allow it, but they never intended them to allow it. They realized that the censors feel the need to remove something from these cutting edge films in order to sleep well at night.
Similarly, software designers could put some crazy stuff in (i.e. the airport scenario from "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2", or "hot coffee" from GTA: San Andreas), and then submit the software for review, while they could automatically have the "censored" version ready for production or even shrink wrapped.
I dont completely agree with the game censorship, but we need to draw the line somewhere.
The first question that jumped to my mind when reading this is: Why? Don't feel special, it's something that always pops into my mind when someone "has to draw a line". Why do we have to draw the line somewhere on everything? There's IMO no reason that everything needs to be reglemented, sectioned into "ok" and "not for you". Who died and made someone else king to tell me what I may see?
Oh, it's gross, shocking, horrible and a few more things? That's war. You're lucky. You may choose whether you want to see it or not (ok, provided you're allowed to). A lot of people, including kids, ain't so lucky. But hey, here's a swell idea. Since you're so concerned with people seeing other people being mutilated, how about shipping everyone from a war zone who doesn't want to be there to you? I'm sure you have a spare bedroom or a million?
Or at least the kids under 18? Oh please, won't someone think of the kids? No?
Why is it that the same people who are so horribly afraid of shoing our kids virtual violence go apeshit over shipping kids out of areas where they see real violence (and towards them)?
Note: I'm not a US american and over 18. Just to refute the immediate knee-jerk response that I'd certainly get without this note.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Before you all start pissing on Oz, saying we're all children, can't think for ourselves, etc.. oh, too late, fancy that. All I can say is, coming from 10 years of having your (US) gov't lie to your face and take you to war, those comments are a bit rich. This is just a computer game. When was your last "armed revolution", huh? Now shut the hell up about my country. Trot over to your precious WalMart, buy a broom and go sweep.
Now that's out of the way, here's some of the debate going on right now about this very issue. Yes, we're not happy having things banned for us, and it won't last. The problem is there's *no* "R" rating for games. None. As soon as we get an R rating into the system, there will be no need for a ban.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/13/2742345.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2009/2749224.htm
A petition was handed to Mr Atkinson months ago.. so much for petitions I guess.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/25/2526244.htm
The problem is not with "Australians", or our culture, so get out of our face with that. It's idiots in high places thinking they know what's best for everyone and try to make their personal little mark on history. Every country has them.
DO YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?!?!?!
THEY DIDN'T FUCK UP THE GORE!!!!!!!!!
You may not be aware of Rebellion's history in video game violence, but they did a DAMNED good job of making a bloody FPS.
So did Valve.
What you don't understand however is that Valve has re-created SOF2's level of gore.
It's so good you won't believe it.
Sure they can regulate store sales in Australia. But there is no way they can really regulate download sales from places like Steam.
Better watch out for all those crusty Warcraft jugglers, they're being trained to kill things as a group. You'd better lower the standards to G ratings or i'm sure all the WoW nerds in Australia will start banding together and rolling against each other for who gets to loot your house.