After the controversial Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 footage depicting player participatory terrorist actions leaked onto the Internet yesterday, we wondered how long until some media moguls latched onto the scene and pilloried the game: the answer is 'not long.' The Sydney Morning Herald [thanks Kotaku] is reporting that a prominent lobby group is asking the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification to reconsider their 15+ rating of Modern Warfare 2 due to the violent nature of the game level.
"The consequences of terrorism are just abhorrent in our community and yet here we are with a product that's meant to be passed off as a leisure time activity, actually promoting what most world leaders speak out publicly against," said Jane Roberts, president of the Australian Council on Children and the Media. "We understand that it's a game but ... we're not far off when you look at the images that you could actually put it on a Channel Nine news report and you'd think maybe that is real. If that material was on the internet about how to become a terrorist, how to join a group and how to wipe out people - that would be removed because it would not be acceptable."
Michael Atkinson, South Australian Attorney-General and a proponent against an 18+ rating in Australia, said, "Expecting game designers to be responsible by not glorifying terrorism will always lead to disappointment."
Nicholas Suzor, spokesman for the lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, countered that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 demonstrates why Australia needs a 18+ rating and that the game would not foster terrorism. "Films often show the villain's perspective and, by doing that, they get across the character's story and the heinous nature of people who carry out atrocities. Games, too, are becoming more expressive, and are telling more involved stories," said Suzor. "We may make an argument that these sorts of topics are not suitable for children, but I don't at all accept that it is unsuitable for adults."
This controversy is much more tangible in Australia than in any other major game markets, since the refusal of classification would effectively ban the game from retail.
5 Comments
October 30, 2009
October 30, 2009
You posted your own empty comment!
No but really...
This needed to be posted, but this debate is so tired. People that haven't played games on a certain level just won't get it. When you're down by four points with two seconds on the clock on the one yard-line and you feel your heart race...you get it. When your character struggles to move sluggishly through the wreckage of a nuclear explosion and you feel that lump in your throat...that's it. It's an emotional response...it's art.
October 30, 2009
Yeah, David accidentally hit the comment button, lol... But yeah, I feel sorry for the gamers down under that have to constantly deal with this nonsense. They desperately need a new ratings system.
October 30, 2009
I'm glad I don't live in Australia. And whats with all these countries that try to project video games as the bane of humankind's existence? Don't they know that violence betweem human beings existed on this planet centuries before the first video game console was ever made?
March 19, 2010
I feel sorry for the gamers down under that have to constantly deal with this nonsense..
psp memory