Aussie censor bans Dead or Alive The Australian classification board has bowed to pressure over the rating of Nintendo 3DS title Dead or Alive: Dimensions, revoking its initial PG certificate and banning it from sale in Australia. The incident has again tested Australia's limited classification board system which currently holds MA 15+ as its highest …
"including up their very short skirts" is a bit sad really; maybe it's funny for a 10 second laugh, but then, really?
"may violate child pornography laws" WTF?? Honestly?? Are drugs now free for use in Sweden too? (I once worked with a Swede, you don't have to answer that!) Yeah, the picture on the screen is of a character that didn't exist 10 seconds before you turned the console on, therefore they are under *** and hence it's child porn, even though it's probably not even porn.
*** Put here an arbitrary number that varies from state to state and depending on what year it is...
OK, I know our censorship system is screwed up, but beause OFLC cocked up, retailers have to pay staff to remove it from shelves, the publisher can't sell it, AND the publisher gets to re-submit it?
Surely OFLC should be re-issuing the classification automatically and as a matter of priority given this is more or less their own fault... Do warranty laws cover government processes?
I was thinking they had finally banned the Doug Anthony all stars album after 20 years.
Apparently animated pixels depicting fictional characters who are said to be 17 is bad, but an album with a song "I F**K dogs" is perfectly fine.
Yes... even drawings of fictional underage character is illegal in Australia.. even if they are above the legal age of consent (16 in most states)
Thought crime is illegal citizen !
I have been an outspoken advocate of the R18+ classification in Australia and a harsh critic of Australian video game censorship rules, but it is stupidity like this that drives me nuts.
No, I'm not referring to the ACB but to the creeps at Team Ninja who developed the game, who no doubt left it in as a deliberate feature. I cannot believe that a game development company would have not thought about the in-game field-of-view (which is so very easily limited to avoid the issue), especially when characters are portrayed as underage. So deliberate, and not an accident.
Either this was a deliberate attempt at controversy to drum up free media exposure, or the male Japanese developers are indulging in their national pastime of twisted sexual fetishes. Great...I now have a horrible mental image of Team Ninja developers hunched over their workstations, masturbating furiously over upskirts of school girls. Thanks, el Reg!
And why are you lot upset with the ACB? It was THQ who left out pertinent information from their application, knowing no doubt that it would be rated harsher. THQ (and you lot) can hardly cry and wail when the ACB changes their opinion when said pertinent information is pointed out to them.
So why should you be angry? Because it makes us all look like a bunch of sad, adolescent weirdoes to a general population who is already suspicious of us. Having said that, my experiences of beat 'em up fans is that the genre seems to attract sad, adolescent weirdoes.
Many of you also seem to have a screwed up notion of media classification. You seem to think that just because it is a bunch of generated polygons that visual depictions don't count. Film gets classified according to a set of rules about how people and situations are depicted on screen. It matters not if the media is live, pre-recorded, acted out by live actors, animated by hand or CGI. Media representations of minors in games should be treated in the same way as the depiction of minors in film. Animated soft-core child pr0n is treated the same way as simulated soft-core child pr0n in film. In both cases, the minors depicted are involved in a simulated event, and they are essentially the same visual scene. Why shouldn't they be treated the same? I think you'll find that ACTUAL child pr0n, you know, the type that involves the abuse of real children, is treated very differently.
@CombatWombat, nice strawman argument. Grow up a bit. Drawings of fictional underage characters is not illegal, not even of sexualised underage characters. Even for publication. You can even animate said sexualised drawings for public sale. Still not illegal! But by animating it for public sale or broadcast means it needs to be submitted for classification, which it is then judged by a set of agreed rules.
Icon: It should be obvious why the gimp was chosen.
"Drawings of fictional underage characters is not illegal, not even of sexualised underage characters."
Actually, yes, it IS illegal here on these benighted Antipodean shores. This was proven in 2008 in the NSW Supreme Court when a man was convicted of child pornography charges for having a joke picture of Bart & Lisa Simpson.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
