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Games Your Rights Online Entertainment

Oz Government Seizes Games For "Full Classification" 52

Posted by timothy from the ignore-the-censor-behind-the-curtain dept.
sprayNwipe writes: "QGL is reporting that the Office of Film and Literature Classification has raided game stores in Australia and removed games from shelves, after deeming that said games are offensive earlier in the day. Some of these games are big christmas sellers, too (Grand Theft Auto 3, and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon). Why must our government be filled with luddites?" Can any Australians comments on what "full classification" means? Does it only mean labels, or are some games outright banned?
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Oz Government Seizes Games For "Full Classification" More

Oz Government Seizes Games For "Full Classification"

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  • Once a jolly OFLC-Man camped by a gameshop
    Under the shade of a parliamentary inquiry
    And he sang as he pulled and classified 'til the children weren't spoiled

    You'll come a-seizing matilda, with me.

  • stealing cars = bad (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Blob Pet ( 86206 ) on Wednesday December 05, 2001 @10:00AM (#2659539) Homepage
    Apparently, the Australian government doesn't take kindly to games that promote the stealing of cars and running down of people; they won't even give GTA3 a rating so it can be sold.

    Do they censor books and other forms of entertainment/media like this in Australia?
    • GTA3 lets you pretend to steal cars and run down animated people on a tv screen. It doesn't promote really stealing cars or running down people in actuality. My son plays good guys/bad guys with his friends, and he pretends his finger is a gun and pretends to shoot his friends with it. Is his game one that "promotes" the shooting of people? Should the government be able to regulate my child's imagination?
      • Hmm - don't give them any ideas.
      • You ask Should the government be able to regulate my child's imagination?

        Of course not. They should merely cut off the offending finger(s).

      • GTA3 lets you pretend to steal cars and run down animated people on a tv screen. It doesn't promote really stealing cars or running down people in actuality.

        I don't know how familiar you are with the concept of "desensitization." I think it applies.

        Historically, only a relatively small proportion of soldiers in combat ever fired their weapons and tried to kill enemy soldiers. For the US, in WWII, that number was (by varying estumates) between 40 and 55%. In other words, half of them weren't. It's certainly understandable: the human conscience normally reacts unfavorably to the prospect of killing. However, that kind of conscientiousness isn't what's needed on a battlefield.

        It's worth noting that the US armed forces used conventional bullseye targets up until after Korea.

        The armed forces determined that they needed to desensitize their people. They needed to make their people so used to shooting at human-shaped objects that this wouldn't be an issue. If people are reluctant to kill other people, then convince them that whoever's downrange isn't human.

        That's why they adopted silhouette targets and even photo targets.

        I don't know if you've ever read it, but it's worthwhile: "On Killing," by Lt. Col. David Grossman, USA (ret.) I don't necessarily buy all of Col. Grossman's conclusions either, but I find them hard to ignore.

        • I'd have to say that silhouette shooting and playing a video game are very different things.

          I have shot police-style silhouette routienes before, and it is a little creepy the first time you pick up a gun and aim it at a human shaped target. But you are there, holding a few pounds of metal, feeling it fire, smelling the powder.

          When you play a game on a video screen, you have maybe a 15 inch glowing window on a cartoonish world. You can't steal a car in real life by clicking a mouse. I argue that the desensitization is NOT there, because the physical and mental cues are vastly different.

          For example, I've played my share of violent video games in the past, from killing stick figure shaped blobs on a c64, to wolfenstien, doom, and more modern violent games.

          When FOX showed one of those "amazing videos" shows where they showed a video of a man being shot, it still really got to me. Of course, I didn't have to watch it.

          There is still a big difference in my mind, and I think in most people's mind, between watching someone on a video game or action movie get shot, and watching real video of someone really getting killed, and between that and committing the acts themselves.
        • It has been proved over and over that humans are very capable of killing, but only the 'other side'.

          When you are fighting a different culture, race, religion, nationality, species, your mind makes it ok to kill.
    • Don't forget to restore your health points you get head....

      ... that can't be bad for our child-rens
  • Maybe it's all a cover so they can get the good games for themselves.

    Other than humor, I find this action too stupid to even comment upon. I hope nothing like this happens in the U.S. If the gov't wants to enforce a rating system (something I don't have a problem with), they need to get their act together before the product is on the shelf.
  • I wonder if this has got anything to do with "Computer Games and Australians Today" a "major national study about computer games and the way in which they are perceived and used by Australians" which were released on Monday by the government?

    This government is so openly divisive for its own ends that I would not put it past them.

  • Grand Theft Video? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jorbettis ( 113413 ) on Wednesday December 05, 2001 @10:29AM (#2659692) Homepage

    I find it amusing that they took these games on the pretense that, if the public had access to them, they would learn by example to do things that are not good for society (ie, stealing cars).

    So the Aussie government's solution is to go out and legally steal all of the video game copies from the stores.

    Yeah, really great example there guys.

    I guess their message is that stealing is ok if it's being done For the Children(tm).

    It reminds me of the tee-shirt, with a picture of a swat team breaking into a house, the caption reads "We're from the government, we're here to help!"

    • I guess their message is that stealing is ok if it's being done For the Children(tm).

      Stealing IS okay when it's done "for the children." Whenever I play GTA2, you'll frequently hear me yelling "Raaah! Take that, pig-f***er! This one's for the children! Raaah!" ... It makes me feel kind of justified.

  • I think it's pretty simple. If the government takes away these 'unsuitable' games from shelves, the people will get them by other means, either by downloading them from warez rings or importing them from overseas. As always, the gov't is just making a huge ass of itself and farting in our faces.
  • Interesting how the government body uses the word "classification" instead of censorship ...
  • Not being an Australian (but in total agreement with the whole banning games sucks theme) - I hunted around for a bit just to try and figure out wtf this all meant.

    The Australian EFF equivalent site [efa.org.au] has a lot of interesting information on censorship in general, and they also a review [efa.org.au] of some of the guts of the issue.

    This doesn't seem to be a new issue though -- in 1999 The Age printed [theage.com.au]that the first game banned for violence actually occurred in 1997.

  • Just like when I was driving home one day and I heard that our illustrious governers decided to ban/tone down Carmagheddon.
    Guess which game I picked up next ?
    If they want to ban it, it must be cool !
  • This isn't an outright ban. You see, when you have beaurocracy, they create procedures. If you try to sell something without going through the proper procedures they get upset. Alls the gaming companies had to do was go through the right procedures and have the games classified and everything would have been alright. But because they didn't, now they have to wait for the OFLC to get around to classifying it in their own time. It's a bit like coding. If you don't comment your change the merge and build manager will send it back to you. You have to follow the procedures.

  • Not the issue, but the reason... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) on Wednesday December 05, 2001 @06:06PM (#2662326) Homepage Journal
    "more sophisticated and realistic games"
    Games have always been violent. Heck, the Atari 2600 had specific hardware/instructions to draw players and missiles. But it becomes an issue for most people when it looks realistic. The problem first arose in a big way when Full Motion Video (FMV) games came out -- back in the days of the Sega Mega CD. Night Trap's horror footage prompted something like a US Senate enquiry into violent video games. So did Mortal Kombat with it's photographic sprites. FMV mostly died for other reasons and while MK has stayed around it's had a lower profile.

    Doom skirted the edges. It was violent, but it wasn't realistic. You were obviously killing monsters, not people.

    Now that 3D technology has gotten to the point where the graphics leave nothing to the imagination the issue has arisen again. At the core, these are the same games that have been played since the beginning of computer games. But on the surface the games look real. What this means is that with a single glance a non-gamer can be exposed to violence -- while previously you had to get into the gameplay and use your imagination to feel/see the same thing. Violent computer games used to hide behind graphical limitations. Whenever the technology catches up with the designer's imagination we have problems like this.

  • It wasn't that long ago that the Aussies decided to severely regulate/ban most firearms. Many in the firearms owners' rights community in the USA have proposed that once the government is finished stripping us of our Second Amendment freedoms, they'll come after the First Amendment. It certainly seems that way down under.

    Two interesting side notes:
    If one looks at the figures on firearms imported into Australia for a number of years (10?) prior to the crackdown, one would find the number of firearms surrendered and registered as required to be only about 20% of that figure...

    Violent crime (assaults, rapes, domestic violence, robberies, burglaries) has INcreased dramatically since the new firearms regulations went into effect. (The crackdown directly resulted from an Aussie, going "Postal", and a desire to "reduce crime".)
    This is just another example of well-intentioned government running amuck. It's no different than the state of California buying power and locking in exorbitant prices that they are now stuck with. When will we ever learn?
    • Many in the firearms owners' rights community in the USA have proposed that once the government is finished stripping us of our Second Amendment freedoms, they'll come after the First Amendment.

      We're going under the assumption they haven't already gone after our first ammendment rights here. Uh huh. Right.
      (If you can be arrested for saying where you can get instructions for acquiring tools which may be used to commit a crime, it seems like we're definitely slipping)
    • First amendment? second amendment? What are you talking about? Australia's Constitution doesnt HAVE first and second amendments. SO how can we have rights under them? We don't have a Bill of Rights. Our constitution is not about the people and the government, but is a document to divide power between our Federal and State Governments. The whole world doesn't live under the US Constitution Chope!
      • He using Australia as an example/reflection of what is going on in the us, which is why he makes the ammendment reference, of course you where just looking for an excuse to be snotty anyways, or you would have read his whole post.dimwit.
    • has INcreased dramatically

      Do you read every piece of chain-e-mail you get?

      Try this link. [aic.gov.au] These are people who have done their research and may even know what they're talking about.

  • Postal (Score:2)

    by Glytch ( 4881 )
    If they thought GTA3 was bad, I wonder what they'd think of Postal and it's sequel?
    • Hmm.. I'd like to know exactly what this game this you are implying is more violent than GTA 3. Linkage?
      • http://www.gopostal.com/

        There's no download, but it's worth every damn penny. Basically, it's a semi-overhead view type game, and you play a psychopath who has to kill as many innocent bystanders as possible with a variety of weapons. It's like a sick version of Blood.

  • If an item is 'Refused Classification' in Australia this means that it is banned from sale to quote from the Guidelines for "Classification of Computer Games" (available online [oflc.gov.au]):

    "Refused Classification. Material so classified may not be sold, hired, exhibited, displayed, demonstrated or advertised."

    Notice that possession of the material is not itself an offence. This is different from Child Pornography where mere possession is an offence. In the case of games it would be interesting to see if playing a game in public (say at a LAN party) would fall into the exhibited, displayed, or demonstrated categories.

  • Why must our government be filled with luddites?"



    Excuse me, do you have any idea what the word luddite means? It's a person who is against technology because it took away their jobs. This has NOTHING to do with that. You (And SlashDot) need to get your act together. Misinformation has become far too popular here.

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