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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.'"
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.
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....
Whatever do you mean?
Do you mean that this is something the Australian public wants? That nothing is being done?
Or perhaps you are one of those nuts that believes that if we are not violent nothing will be done. I'd like to remind you that all those guns did not stop an extremely invasive surveillance law being put into place by the previous US government.
Because you are an ignorant troll, you do not actually know what is happening. Right now the R18 rating is being held up by one man, the South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson. All the other state Attorney Generals voted yes on R18 for games. Australian law in this case requires a complete consensus, not a majority (this prevents the State AG's from removing or changing existing classifications as well). There are already campaigns to remove Michael Atkinson from his seat of Croydon in the 2010 elections such as the Gamers4Croydon organisation.
Please mod the parent troll, if possible ignorant as well.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
You are now mixing kids with adults and this game is not made for kids, it's for adults so your argument goes out of the window right now. Besides, how are the games as you listed wrong? I had tons of fun playing DOOM and Mortal Kombat. Not kids games, but i did play them as a kid, so did you propably but that doesn't mean that every violent game should be banned.
I love violent games. That doesn't mean that i go postal and kill everyone for real. It's entertaining to have some alien go up on a human, smack brains on the wall and go for next victim. It's fun. It's not real. It's a GAME.
Sure, i wouldn't want my kids to see that stuff, when they are kids but there are age ratings for a games for a reason. Why the hell Australia doesn't allow some games for anyone, not even over 18 years old?
Why some games are completely banned? Who are they protecting?
Yeah, because places like Canada and Norway, and most other countries where these games are also legally purchased are having those problems as well.
Oh. Wait.
I've heard of people making the mistake of assuming correlation to mean a possible causal link, but this doesn't even correlate in most countries that have no problem allowing these games. Your reasoning is the same as Homer wanting Lisa's tiger repelling rock.
The problems you describe have to do with much larger underlying problems than anything video games of any sort bring to the table.
Ice Cream has no bones.
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.
Jack Thompson, you've moved to slashdot. Your so called "public safety measure" is really censorship.
Normally I'd tell you to get the hell out of my country but, well, you already did. So, good job. I commend you. Most people who live in the US throw away their freedom and ruin it for the rest of us. You actually did the proper thing and moved to a country where you don't have that freedom in the first place.
Thank you, really, thank you.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Any time people pull this shit, kindly point out to them that since 1993, violent crime in all civilized nations has been on the decline, except in places like Sweden and Switzerland where it has stayed roughly the same, because it was never very high to begin with. This encompasses the era of pretty much all mass market video games. (For reference, Super Nintendo came out in 1992) Australia is actually an exception to this. I'm not saying that's significant, just that it's weird given the story.
An entire generation has grown up playing Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Doom, Quake, Postal, Carmageddon, Grand Theft Auto Cop Killer Simulator Edition, etc., and violent crime has gone down. The homicide rate in the US is the lowest it's been since 1965, when there were 100,000,000 fewer people.
--Obyron