SenseOfTumour said:
I think it's because viewing sexual content has a physical reaction, whereas violence not so much.
Also that a kid playing 'gears of war' in the park with his friends, running about and shouting 'bang' isn't gonna cause any problems, whereas if he's in the park simulating the hot coffee mod with 'friends', there's going to be raised eyebrows.
You know, that's the first time I've ever come across a reasonable argument for censoring sex more than violence. I'm sure a lot of censor-happy people feel this way, but nobody has ever managed to express it before that I've read or heard. It makes a lot more sense when you put it this way than the usual "think of the children!" non-argument.
Spacelord said:
vfaulkon said:
It's interesting to note that other, much older countries have less problems with sex and more with violence...
And then there's Australia, with their 'Big Brother' approach towards game content. Second only to China in terms of government thought control.
Not really. Australia's censorship of games isn't due to a cultural or government tendency for censorship, but a result of a combination of bad luck and a quirk of the political system. Most of the people and politicians in Australia are progressive moderates, but for the past thirty years there have been two politicians with minority-conservative views who happened to be in a position to veto the classification rules.
The first guy was an conservative Catholic named Brian Harradine. For historical reasons, Australia's Upper House of parliament has an equal number of senators from each State, regardless of the population, which means it's easier to get elected in States with smaller populations. Brian Harradine was from Tasmania, the State with the smallest population of all. He was too conservative for the major parties, but whichever party was in government at the time often needed his vote to get laws approved, so they would give him concessions in return for his support. Being both a Catholic and a cranky old man, he naturally didn't understand computer games, so when the rating system for games was being established he demanded that there be no 18+ category - which effectively stopped any game that would have been rated 18+ from being sold. (Note that they're not illegal to own, just to sell.)
By the time Brian Harradine retired from politics in 2004, a man named Michael Atkinson had been appointed the Attorney-General of the State of South Australia. The position of Attorney-General is not an elected one and many of its duties are ceremonial. However, to change the classification laws requires the approval of all Attorney-Generals from all States. There is a proposal to add the 18+ classification for video games being discussed at the moment (not for the first time), and all the AGs are happy to support it... except this one guy.
I'm sure there are conservative-minority politicians everywhere, even in the Netherlands, who would censor mature games if they could. Australia has just been unlucky to always have one in a position to do so.
