Things that should be obvious, but aren’t always so.

• Before updating ones website, you should back the damn thing up! Sames goes for modifying photo’s, hard drives, games, etc etc.
• Before leaving the apartment make sure you have your damn keys & electronic swipe card! Locksmiths are damn expensive.
• Have ID with you, when you are going out. You maybe mid 30′s but retard door bitches are everywhere.

In Australia right now. We are seeing more and more legislation and stupidity all under the guise of ‘we have to protect the children’. I thought that is why we have parents. Increasingly the freedoms you receive by being an adult (ie, over 18) being eroded by over zealous fringe groups trying to rescue us from ourselves. I didn’t realise I needed rescuing.

So instead of having an adult category for playing games. We are stuck with an archaic MA15+ as the maximum rating. Lets review this:

• Can I walk into a newsagent, service station or corner store and buy a R18+ magazine? Yes
• Can I go on to the internet and order pornography with a X18+ rating from the ACT? Yes
• Can I go into a book store and buy a book with content that is graphic, gory, and rates R18+? Yes.
• Can I go into a video store and hire an R18+ horror film? Yes.

For some dumb reason the latest adult gore fest I’m not allowed to buy, because it has been refused classification.

Do we have a democratic process for deciding whether we have an R18+ classification for games? No.

To have a change in the classification regime in Australia takes ‘ALL’ states attorney-generals to agree. Not a majority, not 70%, but 100% of them. We have one holding out. The attorney-general from South Australia believes that we don’t need an adult rating. That children need protecting from adult games. I’m not saying we should be letting children play games rated for adults, but why is a video store clerk, any less able to check id’s than say a store clerk selling cigarettes, or a video store renting out R18+ videos.

I find this hypocritical that we can trust all these other publications, and sellers, but not video games. The average age of gamers in Australia is 30 and increasing all the time. The majority of people playing these games are adult, not children, and deserve to be treated as such.

Michael Atkinson has started to bait opponents of his to take him on at the next election in South Australia. He feels pretty confident in doing this, as he currently sits in one of the safest labor party seats in the country. So he has nothing to fear by this. The only way to have an impact would to be target marginal labor seats in South Australia at the next election, to send a message that people are not happy about his decision.

The Office for Film and Lietrature Classification office has “An R18+ Classification for Computer Games – Public Consultation” currently open. As much as I think it’s a going through the motions exercise as nothing can change without Michael Atkinsons support (or a change of government in South Australia), I believe it’s still important to make yourself heard.