Fallout 3 banned in Australia

[-Origin]

Don't you think kids' naitivity plays a role in this?

Serious question btw, this is an interesting discussion. Don't you agree that businesses should enforce ratings better than they are doing right now?

 

[Zeonix]

I've been playing whatever I want, reading whatever I want and watching whatever I want for as long as I can remember. My parents weren't exactly a huge influence on me, and perhaps that was for the best. Am I out there murdering, raping, mugging and randomly beating the **** out of people? No. Why? Because I've always had access to information. I was never told, "You can't read/see/play that because it's horrible! You're banned from it until you're old enough to have orgies!". No limits on what I was able to view, read and learn meant there was really nothing that I could do short of performing heinous crimes that would make me feel like I was "rebelling against The Man".

And that's how I see the problem. You start banning books and videogames and all it's going to do is make people want to read and play them even more. They're going to try to acquire these things, not even so much because they really love whatever it may be, but because you've peaked their curiosity and they want to engage view the forbidden, the censored.

Children are naive because they lack experience, and that was perfectly fine way back when because they only lacked experience due to being young. Parents and the government are now limiting what the youth can experience, and so that naivety remains for a significantly longer period of time. Once the youth, themselves, realize this, they go after everything they were told to stay away from.

My solution? Stop keeping kids ignorant. Stop coddling them. Let them grow. Let them learn things on their own. Give them access to whatever it is they're interested in. If you've instilled morals in your children, they'll avoid chasing kiddy porn and the rest of the crap out there, and they'll search for material that will benefit them both in the short and long term.

Back to businesses, I don't think they should enforce anything that kid's parents aren't willing to enforce. Same goes for movie theaters. It isn't the ticket guy's job to make sure you're 17 or whatever. If your parent's don't care, I don't care. A movie won't warp you. Neither will a game. Porn shops? 16+ Have some fun. Learn some things. Stop living in a cocoon.

But of course, it's easier to just ban everything than it is to parent. It's easier to let other people do the parenting for you. It's easier to not give a **** in the first place and pretend to be outraged later on.

 

[-Origin]

First off, let me say that I agree with pretty much everything you just said.

Let's use the movie theatre scenario. I know it's not the ticket guy's job to ensure you're the right age for the movie you're seeing, but how is he to know if you have your parents' consent to see it? That's what I meant.

Like you, I've always been allowed to read, see, and play everything I want. I'm not a deranged, violent psychopath either. I guess the thing is that governments need something to blame whenever a kid and his friends lash out in extreme violence and the most obvious excuse for that would be video games. Right?

I like to reinforce the fact that violent films and games do NOT make people violent. I cannot stress this enough and I cannot understand how the government, and parents actually, use this excuse to hide their own inadequacy.

But yeah, back on topic (sort of). Do you think the ratings system is actually completely irrelevant? I mean, it seems to me like it provides parents and governing bodies with an excellent excuse whenever someone goes bat**** bonkers and massacres his friends and family. Whatever happened to psychiatric evaluations?

I hate how these types of situations are always being passed off as being a direct effect of people playing too many videogames. It's never faulty parenting that's causing this.

 

[Renyori]

Wow, thats going to make a lot of Australians resort to piracy.

 

[-Origin]

Oh btw, I meant to ask.

I know I said this before but I'm not quite sure if it's 100% accurate.

Is it just illegal to be sold at retailers, or is it illegal to own? I mean, you could import it quite easily these days.

 

[KYnetiK]

How disappointing...though i can hardly see how it can be worse than The Warriors in content with drug references and use, extreme violence, extreme coarse language, adult themes and sexual references, im still shocked that even made the MA15+ rating. I suppose a bribes out of the question?

 

[Deverz]

They can't stop people owning games

Illegal to sell as far as I know.

They really need a R18+ for Australian games

 

[Barney]

SoF 3 was banned

There was an SoF 3??? Goddamn talk about milking a franchise that isn't even a franchise.

Anways...what Rik said.

 

[Zeonix]

But yeah, back on topic (sort of). Do you think the ratings system is actually completely irrelevant? I mean, it seems to me like it provides parents and governing bodies with an excellent excuse whenever someone goes bat**** bonkers and massacres his friends and family. Whatever happened to psychiatric evaluations?

I hate how these types of situations are always being passed off as being a direct effect of people playing too many videogames. It's never faulty parenting that's causing this.

The rating system is nothing more than a guideline meant to inform parents of the content found within that particular game. It's a tool that assumes parents aren't keeping up with the times, and that's perfectly acceptable (assuming, of course, ratings are absolutely necessary). That said, I do think the system is completely irrelevant. Do most parents really go out of their way to find out what each of the ratings mean? Do they flip the box around and check for "Blood and gore" or "Sexual content" or whatever they find repulsive? I think more often than not, the answer is no. I'm all for getting rid of the rating system altogether, but that's an entirely different topic.

You're absolutely right. A crazy person is crazy regardless of the material s/he has access to. Should we ban Catcher and the Rye because if you look really closely, the book is telling us to murder that FBI agent who's been following us for the last 10 blocks, and who is surely in cahoots with the woman in red? I sure as hell hope not.

It wasn't so long ago that politicians and outraged mothers were trying to ban comic books due to their "obvious negative influence on our youth". I think it's time we (we being the morons trying to ban anything and everything) start to ask ourselves, "Why do the problems that we had 60 years ago still exist? Comic books were never really a problem, rock music isn't a problem, and Howard Stern isn't the Devil incarnate, so why are we continuing this trend and passing the blame onto videogames?"

It'd be ****ing swell if they were able to take a few steps back and notice this blatant pattern of blaming new media for all of societies problems despite all of those problems existing before said media ever made its way into our homes and minds and long after said media is tossed in the trash.

Oh btw, I meant to ask.

I know I said this before but I'm not quite sure if it's 100% accurate.

Is it just illegal to be sold at retailers, or is it illegal to own? I mean, you could import it quite easily these days.

I'm pretty sure it's just illegal for retailers to sell the game. I think the logic is if local retailers aren't selling the game, only the most diehard of "videogame addicts" would import the game from other countries. See? Everyone wins! The children are saved and those darned crazies get their game.

Whatever.

 

[-Origin]

Why's everything you post in here make me feel like you're angry at me?

 

[Zeonix]

Why's everything you post in here make me feel like you're angry at me?

My bad :\.

 

[-Origin]

Must be those damn videogames huh?

 

[Zeonix]

It's the books. Read enough good ones and you'll find yourself angry at everyone and everything for allowing things to get so bad and refusing to do anything about it.

 

[-Origin]

Let's ban all books then?

 

[Zeonix]

Let's ban all books then?

Let's do it. Twice. Then eat. Then once more.

 

[Sonic the Vampire]

The Australian Government has realized that human beings aren't responsible enough to parent their kids, and so the government needs to take a more active role in restricting the number of negative influences parents can harm their children with. For years and years I agreed with everybody who used to complain and say that parents should parent better, and the government shouldn't have any say, but working in retail opened my eyes to the reality. As long as kids are safe at home, leaving them alone, parents do not care what their kids do. I don't believe there exists such a thing as a responsible parent, not from the perspective of somebody who ran an electronics department for a full year. I can't count the number of Grand Theft Auto copies 8-12 year olds brought up to the counter that parents wouldn't let me talk them out of. "He's seen worse on TV." "He played the other ones." American adults are willfully ignorant of video games because they don't play them or understand why kids want them.

People also keep throwing around these "facts" about how violent video games don't impact kids, but it's all totally circumstantial. There are studdies that show kids who play violent or frustrating games have higher levels of aggression as well, and there's really no way of knowing if their aggression is what led them to play, or if playing led them to their aggression. I can tell you that 8 and 10 year olds don't need to be running around shooting people, and parents aren't willing to parent them away from it.


In an unrelated note I would like to remind everybody that this game has the Fallout name, but it isn't Fallout, so don't get your hopes up. I'm surprised it even has an M rating, considering you aren't even allowed to sleep with prostitutes in the game. The only element true to the original Fallout games is the SPECIAL attribute system, and even that has been bastardized for first person combat.

 

[Vagabond]

i know the allowed GTA IV after a few cuts, is that had for them to do it here ?. I knew Fallout 2 was edited for the UK release since they removed the Children

 

[tolore]

The Australian Government has realized that human beings aren't responsible enough to parent their kids, and so the government needs to take a more active role in restricting the number of negative influences parents can harm their children with. For years and years I agreed with everybody who used to complain and say that parents should parent better, and the government shouldn't have any say, but working in retail opened my eyes to the reality. As long as kids are safe at home, leaving them alone, parents do not care what their kids do. I don't believe there exists such a thing as a responsible parent, not from the perspective of somebody who ran an electronics department for a full year. I can't count the number of Grand Theft Auto copies 8-12 year olds brought up to the counter that parents wouldn't let me talk them out of. "He's seen worse on TV." "He played the other ones." American adults are willfully ignorant of video games because they don't play them or understand why kids want them.

I personally know tons of people who were disallowed violent video games when they were kids, and a large portion of these people had the games taken away after they got them at home. so you have to remember 2 things, one out of the people who actually bought the games for the kids some of them WILL actually see it and make a decision later and 2. you're not going to see a lot of the parents not buying their kids violent video games, because they won't be at the counter with violent video games

People also keep throwing around these "facts" about how violent video games don't impact kids, but it's all totally circumstantial. There are studdies that show kids who play violent or frustrating games have higher levels of aggression as well, and there's really no way of knowing if their aggression is what led them to play, or if playing led them to their aggression. I can tell you that 8 and 10 year olds don't need to be running around shooting people, and parents aren't willing to parent them away from it.

I go to Digipen, a college for video game programming. Every single person there is a gamer and has been for a long time. Everytime anyone brings up anything like this like 50%+ of the room raises there hand and says stuff like 'i was playing doom when i was 5' ' or i Remember ripping someones heart out with kano when i was 7'. This is one of the least aggressive and violent places I've been. Don't get me wrong, theres anger, and yelling(the stress from the insane coarse load gets to a lot of people) but theres never violence and things generally die down pretty quickly.

I don't know how people can talk about video games making people violent when you can go somewhere and look at someplace with hundreds of gamers working in a stressful group oriented environment without even a scuffle going on. You can also look at various data and graphs(heck i think even in this forum i've seen em around) that show violent crime in minors has been steadily going down.



I am also of the opinion that if you're banning a game you are putting it on the same level as pornography, I know if i had kids i would sooner give them doom or mortal kombat than hardcore pornography.

 

[Sonic the Vampire]

Tolore you can throw all the anecdotal evidence you want at a problem and it wont be any closer to solved when you get finished. Substituting one argument, that observing the demonstration of violence desensitizes and in some instances increases aggression in youth, for the one-sided argument that "games make people violent" is participating in the wrong discussion. You're arguing that games don't make people violent, and I'm arguing that games have been shown to increase aggression. There are more effects on kids from virtually simulating violence than reaching out and attacking neighbors... they're different arguments.

Furthermore your additional anecdotal evidence about kids you know having games taken away is canceled out by my own anecdotal evidence that I've sold more copies of M rated games to 8-10 year old kids than I can count, while the parents stood in front of me listening to me describe the games for them. Tit for tat, these games do end up in the hands of kids. If they can't play it at their house, I'll bet they have a friend on their block who has it. If you aren't blanket banning these sorts of things kids are finding access to it.

As for the pornography angle you use loaded language in your argument which is already subjective to start with. "Pornography" is, objectively, in a different ballpark than "hardcore pornography," and to give video game violence examples I might compare Halo to Soldier of Fortune. I'd rather my kid see mortal kombat than hardcore pornography as well, but nudity, or softcore pornography is another matter. When you get into violence versus sex you're smashing up against a cultural barrier, as most of the world outside of the United States is incredibly open with sexuality on television as well as in video games while more restrictive about their violence. I personally would rather see more sex in games and less violence, as sex is only promoting something kids are going to end up doing anyway, and violence is arguably desensitizing them to certain ideas or behaviors.

 

[Zeonix]

Tolore you can throw all the anecdotal evidence you want at a problem and it wont be any closer to solved when you get finished. Substituting one argument, that observing the demonstration of violence desensitizes and in some instances increases aggression in youth, for the one-sided argument that "games make people violent" is participating in the wrong discussion. You're arguing that games don't make people violent, and I'm arguing that games have been shown to increase aggression. There are more effects on kids from virtually simulating violence than reaching out and attacking neighbors... they're different arguments.

The study actually says your aggression levels increase while playing video games and for a short time afterward. They go down after you've stopped playing. Not immediately, obviously, but after a short time has passed. It's no different than me watching and being very into a violent movie. You're experiencing that violence vicariously. Once that stimulus is gone, so goes the increased aggression and adrenaline. It's like how someone see's a martial arts movie and right after they walk out, they feel like they can kick everyone's ass. After awhile, that feeling goes away and they're back to being rational.

But the study was done on very young children, so you have to question just how dependable it. It states children, boys particularly, "act out" what they did in the game. Is this limited to video games? Absolutely not. When Power Rangers first came out, every guy I knew was suddenly a martial arts expert and all we did was fight each other. That's how children learn. We imitate what we see. It also stated children who played violent games were prone to argue with "authority figures" and get into "physical altercations" with other boys. First, what's wrong with arguing with authority figures? Oh no, he's questioning my authority! Please o.0. Secondly, what constitutes a physical altercation? Play fighting? Hitting someone's arm? What? It didn't say.

Experiencing violence vicariously may actually explain why violent crimes have gone down since the onset of video games. Because we get our dose of violence through interactive media, we don't feel the need to act out in the real world. We can do whatever as we please in our little virtual worlds, releasing our aggression and anger.

http://www.tudy.ro/images/blog/violentgames.jpg

So what do we do? Ban what lets me get rid of my aggression without anyone getting hurt, or flip out on the old lady who kept looking at me?

Final note, if you're going to argue that exposure to violence in videogames desensitizes us and may make us want to act out, then it isn't hard to say pornography will do the same, and people will most definitely make that argument should sex in games ever become a huge issue. What would they argue? Porn makes people think it's alright to bang whoever you want, whenever you want. Think that nurse is pretty? Bang her right there and then. You know she wants it. And that brings up something else: the objectification of women. Pornography makes men forget that women are people, too, and you need to communicate with them. They have feelings, Boyster. They aren't just sexual objects. Female pornstars have been brainwashed into believing this is what they actually want, but it isn't. They all have one thing in common: they were all victims of sexual abuse as children. Because no one was there to help them through that, they believed they're worthless trash and sold their bodies for money.

Obviously, all of that is bull****, but until we test it on 8 and 9 year olds and find out the complete opposite is true, it'll be the logic employed by the same outraged parents that let their children do as they please.

I'll throw this in because it's hilarious:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/4/12/