Censorship

Several local government representatives were brought to E3 this year courtesy of the Games Developers Association of Australia (GDAA) in an effort to create a greater awareness and understanding of the importance of the games industry.

South Australian Attorney General, Michael Atkinson, has announced that he is stepping down from his position to make way for "new blood" and to devote more time to family. Atkinson made the announcement this morning, according to Adelaide Now.

Online internet petitions. In a lot of cases, they don't make a lick of difference. This, however, could lead up to something more than just hot air and wasted internet space seeing as it's on the Queensland Government website.

Let's hear it for David Doe from Firemint for actively doing something against our broken games classification system. The Gamers 4 Croydon party was formed by David to run against South Australian Attorney-General and stubborn R18+ games rating denier, Michael Atkinson, in next year's state election.

When news spread about the recently leaked video of the airport scene in the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game, it caused considerable concern from gamers and news outlets alike. Although no background details are given about the mission in question of the footage, it has many concluding that that player is involved in a terrorist massacre inside an airport where civilians are gunned down amid screams and chaos.

Publisher 2K Games have mistakenly provided the wrong version for Australian gamers who have pre-ordered online for the futuristic RPG / shooter, Borderlands, via the Steam network.

While Valve have already prepared a less gory version of Left 4 Dead 2 version for Australians just in case their appeal to lift the ban of the original version fails, it's not the version they want to ever see released. However, it looks like that will be what we will be playing come November 17. An independent review has agreed with the original OFLC ruling to refuse classification for the zombie action game in its original state, which means that it cannot be sold on our shores.

From Shacknews.com...

Just when you can't imagine the level of absurdity relating to anything to do with our games classification system getting any sillier, along comes some news that raises that bar to even greater mind-numbing heights.

Shacknews has been able to get a few words out of Valve in response to the news that their highly anticipated Zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead 2, has been refused classification in Australia due to its "realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence". VP of marketing at Valve, Doug Lombardi, had this to say about the whole situation. From Shacknews..."We were surprised to hear of this news yesterday," the executive informed us. "Obviously, everyone at Valve is pretty bummed."