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Bill Introduced To Ban Sale of MA15+ Games To Anyone Under 18 in SA
dotarray writes "The introduction of an R18+ rating for video games into Australia has been designed to bring game classification in line with the current system in place for films and other media. One state, however, would like to widen that gap."
This is being billed (by John Rau's office) as a saner approach than eliminating the MA15+ rating entirely.
Why is there still political uproar over games after all these years? It may have been understandable in the mid-1990s when Doom and Mortal Kombat were portraying a level of violence people hadn't seen in games before in such detail, but that time has passed without effect, and the attention given to games today feels disproportionate. It's just an easy, uncontroversial issue for politicians to pick up in order to appeal to family-first voters.
Is there a black market for R18+ games? Can you just torrent them?
Surely Aussies don't just accept that the games are censored.
Governments aren't exactly renowned for their counting and accounting skills. It's like they try to look stupid to win the "I don't care 'bout that 'math[s]' shit" vote.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Therefore, my intention is that the South Australian legislation will prevent the sale of MA15+ games to minors. This move will give parents greater certainty about the appropriateness of games for their children.
From what I gather, the aim is to make parents/guardians responsible for the content they are viewing/playing, and forcing them (or anyone over 18) to be there at the time of purchase.
However, this goes against the description of the MA15+ rating...
[From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Classification_Board ]
MA15+ (Mature Accompanied for those under 15) - Persons under said age may only legally purchase, rent, exhibit or view MA15+ rated content under the supervision of an adult guardian. The exhibition of these films to people under the age of 15 years who are not supervised by an adult guardian is a criminal offence. Recommended for 14-15+.
Actual South Australian here - This is actually A Good Thing.
For about 15-20 years our ratings have been E - Exempt, G - for general exhibition, PG - Parental guidance, M15+, MA15+ and R18+ and X18+.
This removes the bullshit rating of ma15 plus, basically it's an M with 'a bit more but not quite an R'.
There hasn't been an R18 for games, so this is where they were all shoehorned, into this ma15+ category.
More info - see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Classification_Board#Film_and_video_game_classifications
...that thinks we shouldn't be asking the state with the City of Churches how to protect children.
It's a bit like putting Hunter S. Thompson in charge of the uppers.
It's a state within Australia. We have several, including one which looks like a hairy vagina that we all forget about when we draw a map.
South Australia's capital is called Adelaide. It's nickname is the City of Churches because it has a crapload of churches and a proportionate number of wacko religious fucknuts to go with it. Sunday trading is still an issue and newcomers to the state are hazed by being murdered and dissolve in acid in a barrel and left in a bank vault. Their courts are full of lesbian vampire murderers. Weirdly enough they have a relaxed attitude towards dope and you can have a certain number of plants for "personal use". I call it a place to retire.
Ben Folds lives there.
All of the above is true. I swear it's too good to make up.
That was Brisbane (and across the street from where I lived once) unless Adelaide had that as well. The bodies in barrels in a bank vault (Snowtown) was definitely in South Australia though. They grow strange people in politics and good bands there.
Just politicians demonstrating how irrelevant and out-of-touch with they are with society in general...
Imagine if they where trying to ban sales of a board game, or books? Talk about inappropriate usage of public funds!
Also, how ironic that they would target an age group of people who are just about to make the first political decision/vote in there life; Which way do you think they'll vote. First impression count much for you?
And who is this supposed to be scoring points for? Could it be that there is an ulterior motive; history has showed us that's a slippery and dangerous path...
kids should not be able to buy content that is violent, graphic, has sex (not often) and mature themes. Theaters have been doing it for years. the target market for video games is kids, I am sure that had nothing to do with a lax rating system.
Six States ... and two Territories (ACT and NT). While they are constitutionally treated a bit differently than the states (e.g. less representatives in the Federal Senate), they both also have their own legislatures/governments.
So for most intents and purposes, Australia has 8 separate 'subdivisions' that are analogous to States in the USA (even if two of them are not technically States).
Simple map showing location of the 8 States/Territories here
Only if you live in a place where you need to actually refer to South Africa often enough to need an acronym for it. That'd be like complaining that WA refers to Washington state in America instead of Western Australia. Or that CA can be California (state code), or Canada (country code). All depends on where you are.
But if you really want to get pedantic, SA (or technically, AU-SA) is the official state code for South Australia under ISO 3166-2. South Africa is ZA.
Internationally, "SA" usually refers to South Africa, not South Australia.
According to Google's "I feel lucky", SA refers to Sexaholics Anonymous
Or maybe Google has just profiled me and I should feel really embarrassed.
[Rent This Space]
A rating of 15+ or 18+ is not prohibition, kids. It just means you should take your parents to the shop to buy you that 15+ or 18+ game. If they buy it for you, no government is going to stop you from blowing some virtual guy's head off.
IOW. Move along.