Halloween: The Game is banned in Australia because incentivized drug use is bad but incentivized ultra-violence isn't
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/halloween-the-game-is-banned-in-australia-because-incentivized-drug-use-is-bad-but-incentivized-ultra-violence-isnt/Open linkView original on lemmy.today
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I thought we were beyond this shit ever since the 18+ rating system for games came in like a decade ago?
Apparently the censors are still stuck in 2008?
https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/australia-bans-video-game-fallout-3-over-drug-use-idUSSP329206/
This is why I argued at the time that the problem was not the lack of an 18+ rating, but the philosophy of the law was wrong. The lack of an 18+ rating meant that some games could not be rated, and if a game does not have a rating from the government then you cannot sell it. This is effectively a situation where all games are by default banned unless explicitly allowed by the government.
Lobbying for an 18+ rating doesn't solve this problem. And this is exactly what happened; an 18+ rating was created, but with some things that are excluded from that rating. If a game includes those things, then it can't get an 18+ rating and therefore banned.
The default position should be the other way around: everything is allowed by adults only unless explicitly allowed for minors.
I am not convinced that you can fix unenlightened, paternalistic government behaviour with technocratic bureaucracy reforms.
Australia is a censorship shithole.
They're the reason that the Fallout games use words like Med-X and Psycho for the chems. Originally that was all going to be named after real drugs.
This has been the case for . . . Well, lets say 60 years.
It explains a lot.
Only an idiot thinks game or movie violence makes a person violent. (Exception being impressionable kids)
But Australia's censorship is on a whole nother level. Adults should make their own choices.
Did they really ban porn with flat-chested adult women? Feels like the first story that really made the world aware of how backwards and puritanical the government is down under
I remember buying Phantasmagoria just because it listed a bunch of countries it was banned in on the box. Makes for a good ad.
https://xkcd.com/391/