The touble with gaming in Australia
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By Antman in Gaming Published: Friday, 30 October 09 - 02:44 AM (GMT +10:00) Last Updated: Friday, 30 October 09 - 02:46 AM (GMT +10:00) |
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Living in Australia can be pretty hard on gamers, especially for the people who are strapped for cash. In today’s economy, you need to save every cent, so people aren’t buying games as much as they used to, especially in Australia where prices are ridiculously high in stores. It also doesn’t help when games you may have wanted to get, get banned or heavily edited due to having no R18+ classification for games in Australia. The OFLC, or more specifically Michael Atkinson, is the only person on the OFLC that is against adding an R18+ classification, which needs a unanimous vote for it to be added.
The average age of a gamer these days is 30 years old. With most of the gamers being over 18, one can see why there is such an outcry when games get banned from Australia for being over the MA15+ classification, the highest a game can be rated in Australia. The reasoning behind not having an R18+ classification is to keep those sorts of high impact violence, or nudity, out of Australia and away from children, who might be influenced by the games they play. The common argument against that is with that rating, it should be up to the parents or guardians of the children to keep them away from games which they are not old enough to play, as well as stores asking for ID, not a guy in the OFLC controlling what the people of Australia are allowed to play, especially the people who are legally allowed to do so, which is the majority of gamers.
Apart from the price of games, and the classification, it also does not help when games are released up to a month or two after being released in other places in the world. With all these issues, people have turned to importing games from overseas, which is cheaper, unedited, and getting it before everyone else in Australia.
With games costing so much in stores, more and more people are buying games online, and downloading them straight to the computer through online stores such as Steam, which works out a lot cheaper compared to retail. A perfect example is Left 4 Dead 2, which is selling for $110(AUD) at EB games, while on steam it costs around $60(AUD). The only incentive for buying it retail is for the box, but to pay an extra $50 just for the box, it just does not seem worth it.
The latest controversy surrounding classifications and the OFLC is Left 4 Dead 2 which the OFLC refused to classify it due to the level of violence in the game. Valves, the makers of Left 4 Dead, have modified the game to release in Australia which greatly lowers the visual gore and dismemberment from the game, to lower the high impact violence. With this game being released only 1 year after the first, causing much anger, boycotts and petitions, with people claiming it is too soon, and just like the first, as well as it costing $110(AUD) in retail stores, and now being only a watered down version, it won’t be surprising if Left 4 Dead 2 is not a big success on launch day.
- Antman
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