Fallout 3 banned in Australia

I think the GDAA are already working in league with the IEAA to help push for an R rating classification (with the IEAA in return helping out with the tax rebate push). To be honest, I don't see why the GDAA should be encouraged to push for the R rating at all when it has little benefit for the games development industry, but I guess there's strength in numbers and a mutual benefit for both organisations.

I came to this thread too late, so i'm probably just posting for myself, but here goes anyway...

Disclaimers; I've worked in game dev for ten years. I briefly worked at Tantalus, but it was years ago. Tom and i are not particular friends, but we are civil.

No, i am neither Tom nor his mother.

I'm going to assume that your mistake comes from a simple misunderstanding, I'll try to clear that up and hopefully avoid sounding condescending, or being a HUGE jerk (i am actually just an average size jerk)

The GDAA's stated goals are;

* Promote the growth of the game industry in Australia
* Represent the interests of GDAA members
* Attract capital and publishers from offshore
* Retain and attract talent in our local industry
* Promote a sense of community within the industry

You could argue that ensuring Fallout 3's local release is part of the first and second points.

But you'd be wrong. The D in GDAA is Developers. GDAA's focus is primarily Dev houses and what flows INTO them (eg talent, students, money, job contracts). It would take a much larger organisation to ALSO cover what flows OUT of them - to whit, the actual release of games.

And even if the GDAA did focus on that they would actively clash with those directly responsible for the RELEASE of games - US/European Publishers and Aust. Retailers.

That's who we should be angry at. They should put forward the case for Fallout 3 and similar cases.

But they never will. Because if the Retailers stood up in the media glare and said 'screw you, we think that game is okay' they run the risk of even closer govt scrutiny and special interest group (family values and/or religious focussed) backlash.

Which is exactly what happens in the US.

Given that most Publishing Companies are giant, greedy, TardBot-beasts who can't discern a qualitative difference between Halflife 2 and ET on the 2600 unless they check a review, we shouldn't expect too much from them. So if the retailers don't care, then they don't either.

NOTE - i am only discussing Australia, a tiny percentage of any game's potential earnings. When major titles are banned in the US or Europe, the 'I'GDA, the Publishers, and sometimes the retailers DO care and DO kick up a stink.

I guess I'm just saying that if u wanna hate, aim it right.

Some other points

1 - He's not REALLY fat. Unless it happened in the last 6 months.

2 - He's not the best head the GDAA COULD have, but he is the best it HAS had.

3 - He doesn't 'beg' for money, his argument is that funding for game development should be equitable with similar media. e.g. film. (personally i don't entirely agree, but it's certainly an arguable stance)

God, that was long...sorry.

This game was banned because it apparently encourages drug use?! It's a similar excuse they used to ban Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure - that game was banned because they reasoned that it could encourage *real* crime.

I think it's time for the OFLC to pony up some research and papers to show the connection between games and REAL crime to back up some of these decisions, otherwise they're just refusing classifications out of their arses, basing them out of nothing.

But honestly, there are probably dozens and dozens of games in the past where morphine or other drugs are used to increase health or do odd things.

you could always import a legitimate copy...