Okay, this has got to stop. The game rating system in Australia is fucked beyond belief, only really surpassed by Germany, but that's not the point.
The Office of Film and Literature Classification of Australia (OFLC) has today banned the sale and import of Left 4 Dead 2, one of the most anticipated games of the year and a huge pre-order game around the country.
Apparently they've Banned it for "Excessive violence and horrific acts against living humans, especially with melee weapons, which result in copious amounts of blood and gore, dismemberment and decapitation." Have they seen any of the gore flicks released in the last few years? What the fuck??
As I said before, this has gone too far. The OFLC seems to be so out of touch that they think they can just make up our minds for us and we'll just agree. This is not the case. Even though I agree that it should not be released under an MA15+ rating, since it is incredibly visceral, with tons of blood spraying everywhere and cutting people up and stuff, yet the OFLC is completely opposed to simply creating a R18+ rating for video games, they seem content to assume that nobody over the age of eighteen even looks at video games, which is absolutely not the case.
Why won't they just make an R18+ rating?
One of their arguments is that children shouldn't be allowed to view such explicitly violent content. I have to say that I completely agree with this statement, but they also seem to assume that every single parent in our wide brown land is an incredibly negligent person who just lets their five-year-old play Dead Space or Mad World. Sure there is the occasional parent who needs a child-rearing class, but lets face it, most people who decide to have kids aren't fucking around, so they're be perfectly reasonable when it comes to their children's exposure of video games. Seriously, you wouldn't take your six-year-old to see SAW 5 would you?
When it comes down to it, the average age of gamers worldwide is 31. I think if we can hold down a steady job, own a car, house and pay taxes, we should be able to decide by
OURSELVES if we want to view violent, sexual, drug involving or otherwise offensive content in the media that we pay for, be it movies, books, tv or video games, without some government watchdog looking over out shoulders telling us what to do, don't you think?
I have to say, I'm almost entirely certain that the entire board is made up of grumpy, uninteresting old men, who enjoy nothing more than taking candy from babies and knocking kids off their tricycles.
For the article heard this from, click here.
[link]Oh well, that's my vent for the week

C.C