Comments on: SA Attorney General throws down the gauntlet to gamers http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/03/18/sa-attorney-general-throws-down-the-gauntlet-to-gamers/ now with extra source Sun, 12 Feb 2012 06:22:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Dale Leorke http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/03/18/sa-attorney-general-throws-down-the-gauntlet-to-gamers/#comment-16601 Dale Leorke Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000 #comment-16601 I doubt Atkinson could name a single videogame where players can “rape” or “torture” anyone, let alone political refugees like those in his electorate whom he claims to represent. I’m certainly not aware of any. The real issue here, as I have argued previously on Crikey (http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20080228-The-R18-treatment.html), is that the current classification system allows political censorship of games based not on their actual content, but the political issue of the day. This was the case with Mark Ecko’s Getting Up, banned in Australia for “promoting the crime of graffiti” at a time when then-Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock was on a public crusade against street graffiti. And in Singapore, the science fiction game “Mass Effect” was threatened to be banned because players can choose to play as a lesbian character. The argument about protecting children from violence is a smokescreen used by politicians to serve their own political interests.<br /><br />Atkinson’s comparison of videogames with war crimes and political violence is appalling, not to mention offensive. It’s also a perfect example of how conservative politicians will go to any length to evade the fact they are promoting an intrusive, undemocratic system for the classification of videogames when consumers surely have the intellectual capacity to decide whether or not they want to play them themselves. I doubt Atkinson could name a single videogame where players can “rape” or “torture” anyone, let alone political refugees like those in his electorate whom he claims to represent. I’m certainly not aware of any. The real issue here, as I have argued previously on Crikey (http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20080228-The-R18-treatment.html), is that the current classification system allows political censorship of games based not on their actual content, but the political issue of the day. This was the case with Mark Ecko’s Getting Up, banned in Australia for “promoting the crime of graffiti” at a time when then-Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock was on a public crusade against street graffiti. And in Singapore, the science fiction game “Mass Effect” was threatened to be banned because players can choose to play as a lesbian character. The argument about protecting children from violence is a smokescreen used by politicians to serve their own political interests.

Atkinson’s comparison of videogames with war crimes and political violence is appalling, not to mention offensive. It’s also a perfect example of how conservative politicians will go to any length to evade the fact they are promoting an intrusive, undemocratic system for the classification of videogames when consumers surely have the intellectual capacity to decide whether or not they want to play them themselves.

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