Warcraft and other MMOs banned in Australia, No Not Really

Over the past few weeks, there have been many discussions about the legality of selling massively multi-online player games in Australia.  Originally, Tateru Nino of massively.com reported some possible censorship by the Australian government concerning online games.  In the original article the questions were raised as to whether a game that is played entirely online can be legally sold in the land down under.

The story spread like wildfire over the Internet.  Censorship is a touchy subject that will always get press attention no matter how little the situation.  Numerous online magazines, weblogs, gaming sites, and news outlets quickly began to question the possible censorship issues.  Some concerned videogame players even posted on the World of Warcraft forms to inquire if the game could be sold.  Immediately, a blizzard poster responded, "we will always respect the laws of the countries in which we operate."

Even an Australian newspaper ran a story stating that people could be fined for selling illegal video games.

AbleGamers decided to dig deeper and actually speak to an Australian to gather their take on the situation.  Colm Kiely, a resident of the great city of Perth, and friend of AbleGamers, stated an initial reaction of your shock and incredulousness to this story, "WOW! I didn't even know about this until you told me!"  After further review, he reported that in fact no games were absent from the shelves of his local videogame store, "All that being said, I went to an EB today and WoW, Guild Wars, etc were still on the shelf."

Was there some sort of massive miscommunication?  Could it be that video games are not illegal?

There are two problems that occurred during this story.  First, the truth behind the story is that Australia has a rating system, which is outdated and does not cover the MMO category adequately.  The actual exclamation behind the problem is quite complex but there are some very good articles, which explain the technical details of getting these games rated. Colm says, "This has always been the case, and MMOs have had a blind eye turned towards them. This is just some joker on a slow news day decided to highlight the issue." He adds, "Isn't the catastrophe on the east coast [tragic fires] and the global economic meltdown news enough?"

The cliff notes version of the stories is that there was a miscommunication between games that involve some online play and games that involve playing completely online.  Americans added the phrase "game play may very online" in order to legally cover themselves in case someone swears to a 12-year-old.  However, the Australians have not yet adapted to an online gaming world.

The second problem is that the media loves to sensationalize and point out problems.  There is truth in the original article.  However, stating that video games could be banned by simply calling the police was an over exaggeration to a complex problem.  The article would have been a much better service to the community without sensationalizing the information. "This story probably got traction because of recent censorship actions by our government - Fallout 3 was banned until they stopped calling the in-game drug "morphine", and the government is trying to install its own "Great Wall of China" internet filter, despite every trial so far showing it to be ineffective, with poor false positive and false negative results."

Kotaku released a compelling article to explain why the confusion occurred and to publicize the Warcraft is not banned.  Disabled Australian gamers and non-disabled gamers alike need not fear that their favorite video game will not be available on the store shelves anytime soon.  The Australian ratings commission needs to do an overhaul on how games are rated but this does not mean that they will be any legal commodity in the meantime.

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0 #3 COMMENT_TITLE_R E Warcraft and other MMOs banned in Australia, No Not Really — Tateru Nino 2009-04-08 14:05

As it happens, I never said the games were banned either, though a lot of other people did. I imagine that they weren't reading closely enough. By the letter of the laws as written, and by the statements of the Australian Classifications Board the games contravened the relevant acts in their unrated and unlabeled state.

The ACB has since displayed confusion over the issue, contradicting its prior official statements, and expressing uncertainty over the issue - before simply turning away any inquiries on the matter of MMOG ratings at all. I believe that was all covered quite adequately in the followups.

So, legally? Either the games need ratings, or the regulations need updating to say that they don't. Right now, it says that they do, and they don't have them (actually some MMOGs certainly do have proper ratings).

Picking and choosing how and when to enforce laws doesn't serve the public interest, I believe. Change the law, or change the practice - it shouldn't be a matter of mercurial opinion. Right now, the current practice allows any content to go to shelves in MMOG form without restriction or oversight and makes a mockery of having a mandatory ratings system at all.

 

 

0 #2 COMMENT_TITLE_R E Warcraft and other MMOs banned in Australia, No Not Really — Camilya 2009-02-23 18:39

Nice story but the highlight for me was definitely your pics. lol

I feel like I need to throw out the legal disclaimer - no kangaroos or koalas were actually harmed in the making of this story. hehe

 

 

0 #1 COMMENT_TITLE_R E Warcraft and other MMOs banned in Australia, No Not Really — 1armbandit 2009-02-20 15:42

Funny stuff, now lame joke. Throw shrimp on the barbie.

 

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