News Alien probes deny Saints Row 4 classification in Australia

Australia's classification board has denied Saints Row a rating due to its alien anal probe weapon and alien narcotics.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2013/06/26/alien-probes-deny-saints-row-4-classificati/1

 

State of decay has also been refused classification because the in-game healing items 'encourages drug use by associating it with reward'.

source

Now I know Fallout 3 fell foul of the same rule [originally used real-world names for drugs and showed the player taking them], but it does seem a bit daft. As for the 'It may influence children' argument, well isn't that the whole point of the age ratings? So children can't buy stuff with 'Adult themes/content'.

Plus if your child[ren] don't know the misuse of drugs is wrong whose fault is that?

 

It's a little known fact that alien anal probe weapon and alien narcotics are serious business in Australia.

Also if your children are allowed to play Saints Row then they're probably having casual sex and abusing drug anyway. Also, they smell.

Seriously though, the ACB is portraying the entire Australian population as a bunch of halfwits unable to differentiate a ridiculously OTT game and reality, even over the age of 18. Which despite the stereotypical viewpoint, is only true of 75% of the population.

 

Are parents going to see their children playing Saints Row and think (picking an extreme example) "this better be the game where you kill hookers to get your money back, not the one with the drugs"?

Maybe the developers should refuse to cave, and eventually the users will get their way.

 

Maybe they need to actually enforce the current laws they have in place, if retailers sold cigarettes or alcohol to under age children its very likely they would be caught out after a while.
But when selling 18+ games to children under the age no one seems to do anything, well at least hear in the UK.

 

Why should 18+ games be treated any different to films.

After watching trainspotting did you go out and become a heroin addict?

Did Saw inspire you to be a saddistic murderer?

This is basically saying Australians are all morons that will copy what they see, and need to be censored like children.

Personally I find films harder hitting than a game but graphics are getting better.

 

I know Australia has a tendency to be a bit OTT with classification but I have to agree with the anal probe reason, We are all being far to desensitized regarding sexual assault (among other things) in all forms of media and the leaked photos of U.S troops, gang raping and killing innocent Iraqi woman really has my back up on the subject now !

 

wish id became a heroine addict instead as per amusing article typo haha

 

EDIT: wrong thread ¬_¬

 

Isn't this the same country that outlawed flat chested women?

I agree that 100% of the problem is parents letting their kids see the stuff. The rating system is useless otherwise.

 

How about some thought before everyone goes off with their first impulse?

Doesn't that sound like all kinds of fun?

It is a little bit more than just "protecting kiddies" issue. It is about graphic sexual violence and rape with an instrument. And it is supposed to be funny, is it? I don't think it is a censorship issue, and I agree with the ACB on this issue. It will be removed, SR4 will come out, and it will have no impact on gameplay. Go get your alien anal rape jollies elsewhere and forgive me if I choose not to make my stand on censorship over interactive violent anal rape.

As the game was always going to be a R18+ game, protecting kids is irrelevant to this and shouldn't be used in the debate. The reason is extreme depictions of graphic sexual violence. That is it. Not kids, not parents, not censorship, not prudish outrage. Australia (or their representatives in a democratically elected system) has decided that such depictions of graphic sexual violence is not wanted. If Britain wants it, or the USA, then good on Britain and the USA. If you are Australian, then change it democratically if you don't like it, but that is what it is.

Drug use in games. Australia has rules about the realistic depiction (note this part) of drugs in games that are different than films because games are interactive. Realistic drug use cannot be shown to provide a positive effect in game. Drug use is fine (which is why you see all sorts of powder snorting in GTAs), realistic drug use to enhance combat performance is not. Fallout 3 had the same issue where Morphine was used positively, so the name was changed to Med-X.
Did you miss the "Morphine" references, or was Fallout just as fun with "Med-X"?

Whether you agree or not is immaterial, because those are the standards in Australia. I seriously doubt your enjoyment of SR4 will suffer if the Alien Anal Probe is removed, and if it is then I pity you.

 

We change people through conversation, not through censorship.

 

Don't they get tired of making those degenerate games? From Bioshock Infinite to Borderlands 2, all we see is unjustified violence, misandry and a multicultural non-European West.
Other than the fact all those games are horribly designed and are 5 generations old, technology wise, what kind of purpose/s or vision/s do those games serve?

 

But other probing methods are just so inefficient in comparison.

 

Who is trying to change people? I'm being serious, who is trying to change who? Change people who violently anal probe people into people who don't violently anal probe people? Is this a large segment of the population?

This isn't about trying to modify society into something else, it is about a democratic country that says we have standards for of the kinds of media we want in our society whether the consumers are adults or not. The difference between this and the Saw movies or books or any other media source you want to compare it to is the interactivity part - you are controlling and not observing the activity, which is chasing down people and raping them to death.

I actually disagree with the ACB restrictions on positive realistic depictions of drugs, but I understand why the standards are there, and the changes made to games (see Fallout 3 example above) are so minimal that they have no impact on gameplay or the enjoyment of the game.
But I do agree with the ACB decision of the Alien Anal Probe in SR4. It has gone a little beyond the side-splitting hilarity of hitting people with huge dildos in SR3.

Seriously, I'm not going to make my stand against the evils of censorship by trying to defend an alien anal probe machine that rapes people to death.

 

It's an immature concept without a doubt, but consenting adults should be perfectly entitled to play a game whatever the content. Have you ever considered that killing realistic looking people violently with realistic weapons is probably more of a disturbing concept than gaining health from using pretend morphine or roger-launching cartoon people to death with an OTT cartoon alien probe?

Because we sure as hell see a lot of the former in games and films, and frankly murder tends to be considered at least as abhorrent as rape/drug abuse in actual society.

It's always baffled me how societies are quite happy to encourage censorship to save the children, whilst at the same time removing the rights of adults to do perfectly legal things like play stupid violent video games. I've never played a Saint's Row game (nor Rapelay or Postal etc.), but I did pay Manhunt many moons ago and have enjoyed a GTA or two.

I don't know the context of this weapon, I assume it's used to kill "enemies" as opposed to random civilians, whereas in GTA it's a free for all with whatever you can find - yet that's OK?

 

But it is about what a society considers acceptable, you cant change that by banning something.
E.g. you probably couldn't find a game depicting kiddy fiddling as the vast majority of the world has been educated in recent times on how sickening and damaging this is.

 

Kiddy fiddling is highly illegal, whereas firing people in the air via the medium of an imaginary anal skewer is not a tried and tested facet of reality, and never will be. Nor is it even possible - it is cartoon violence and far worse has already been depicted elsewhere, just a few clicks away.

 

Yes it is illegal, but go back into history and it wasn't
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent

AFAIK depicting violence or drug use isn't illegal so people should be allowed to make the choice if they want to view such material, banning something that isn't illegal does nothing to further societies understanding on why new laws maybe needed.

There are laws already in place to protect minors from inappropriate material, if governments are not enforcing these laws then we have to ask why and if current laws need revising.

 

This is what gets me, how are we so okay with large scale murder whenever these games are rated in such a way a fictional weapon and drug can get it banned? We are talking about a very unrealistic and silly beyond belief weapon in a game filled with much more realistic forms of violence. A game where you could go on a massive hit and run/drive by shooting murder spree filled with gunning down innocent bystanders and any police that try to stop you.

Taken out of the context that this is a game, a very very silly game, you could be mistaken for thinking only a ****ing sadist would get pleasure out of this. Ignoring the fact that each of the mechanics that enable this play is built around a (supposedly) fun game system that makes the various skills required to do it entertaining.

I don't understand how people can possibly draw the line at a fictional and incredibly stupid weapon ( which is likely optional) under the pretence that is depicts sexual violence in a game that will have you murdering literally thousands of characters in many violent ways while rampaging through a city.