January 1st marked the first day of the new, much-campaigned-for, long-awaited R18+ legislation for computer and video games in Australia. Under the new legislation, the Classification Board is now free to classify games up to an R18+ level, although it’s likely that we won’t see our first R18+ rated game for some months to come.

Queensland remains the only Australian state or territory yet to pass the R18+ legislation, although this is expected to be resolved shortly. This does mean that Queenslanders will be unable to purchase any R18+ rated games until this matter is concluded — although it is widely believed that no games will be rated R18+ and released before the legislation is passed.

Gamers hoping that already-classified games will be re-rated to R18+ are unfortunately in for disappointment: there’s a mandatory two-year period before a game can be re-classified. Games like Left 4 Dead 2 which were released in 2009 could potentially be re-rated, assuming that Valve were willing to stump up the costs.

The IGEA’s Ron Curry, speaking to Gamespot, expressed cautious optimism. “We are weary though of how the revised guidelines will be interpreted and if we are really getting an R18+ category, or just a movement of MA15+ into higher level of classification,” he said.

“Initially, we expect the Classification Board to be a little cautious in how they apply the new guidelines, so we may need to wait some time to see how the dust settles on this.”

Brace yourself for another fresh wave of blame-shifting: the NRA’s executive vice president Wayne LaPierre has used a press conference overnight to blame games, music and TV for corrupting the youth of America and inciting them to violence.

“There exists in this country a callous, corrupt, and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people,” claimed LaPierre. “Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat, and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers. It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?”

For those playing along at home who’ve never heard of Kindergarten Killers, that’s because it’s a crude Flash game made by an 18-year-old UK dude from ten years ago. And nobody ever played it, because… see above.

But LaPierre isn’t finished yet.

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Senator Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia has proposed a bill to US Congress that would ask the National Academy of Sciences to examine the impact of violent games on children, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings on December 14 that left 20 children and six adults dead.

“This week, we are all focused on protecting our children. At times like this, we need to take a comprehensive look at all the ways we can keep our kids safe,” claims the Senator on his site. “I have long expressed concern about the impact of the violent content our kids see and interact with every day.”

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Did you see My Year Without Sex? No? C’mon, it was shown at the Adelaide Film Festival. Funded by Screen Australia?

No, of course you didn’t. It was a complete commercial flop.

On the other hand, you might have seen Saw. I didn’t—too squeamish. But it’s a successful film franchise that was denied Australian funding. So it was produced overseas.

Last week, the Federal Government announced the launch of a 20 million grant fund for Australian game developers. The guidelines for who gets these grants will be written by Screen Australia. Fortunately, Screen Australia has recognised that it mightn’t know a lot about funding successful games, and so has reached out to the games industry for input. So today, let’s look at how these grants should be funded.

Oh dear. I’m going to have trouble being the unbiased reporter on this one. As you all have no doubt heard, Arts Minister Simon Crean announced that the games industry in Australia would be getting a $20 million cash injection over the next 3 years, which is, of course, very exciting and welcome news.

Today, Mr. Crean sat down with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell to discuss the introduction of the fund, among other things. During  the interview Mitchell called the new fund “welfare for nerds” and referred to video games in general as “go out and shoot people type games”, proving his complete ignorance of the subject matter and somehow completely missing the economic and cultural impact the fund would have.

I’m trying to keep a level head here, but it really shows how society at large just does not get video games. Even as the “are video games art?” debate rages on — but whether yes or no, video games are not just some sort of kill simulators, and not just for ill-raised children.

Speaking with Kotaku yesterday, CEO of the Games Developers’ Association of Australia put it best when he said, “There are those perceptions,” said Tony Reed, “that games are toys — but we’re so much than that.” He went on to say that debunking these illusions is part of the industry’s responsibility, and that the dated perceptions of the mass media were a large part of the problem.

“Whenever games hit the news it’s bad news. So it was a long educational process about what games are, what their audience is and how they play — and certainly the commercial side of things, the economic benefit. It was really important to communicate that.”

Source: Kotaku AU

In a very welcome move this morning, Arts Minister Simon Crean today announced that $20 million of government funding would be injected into the Australian game development scene over the next three years. The money will be part of the creation of the new Australian Interactive Games Fund, which will deliver $5 million per year until 2013, where it will jump to $10 million in 2014–15.

“‘The gaming sector is in many ways the natural extension of film,” said Minister Crean. “On Tuesday I visited the Fox Studios set of The Wolverine in Sydney which as a franchise has been adapted on almost every gaming platform. The sector is a major employer and local start-up companies like Melbourne-based Voxel Agents have seen their Train Conductor series downloaded more than five mllion times. More established companies like Brisbane’s Halfbrick Studios had their game Fruit Ninja downloaded 300 million times.”

“Australians are significant consumers of interactive games spending some $1.5 billion last year in retail sales and with ninety two per cent of households owning a device for games.”

Source: Press Release

Only five years after it was promised and after five years of non-stop campaigning against it, the Australian Government has finally agreed that their proposed mandatory internet filter is, in fact, an awful idea and should be scrapped.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has a cunning alternative plan: ISP’s have now been issued with Interpol’s “Worst Of The Internet” database, and are required to block access to that. “We’ve reached agreement with all of the telco service providers that they will block the worst of the worst – the child abuse pornography material that’s available on the public internet,” said Senator Conroy to the ABC.

The list covers about 1,400 websites, but the ACL is claiming it doesn’t go far enough with managing director and well-known troll Jim Wallace claiming the government was breaking its election promise. “Having ISPs block only illegal child abuse material does not meet the government’s cyber safety election commitment to mandatory ISP filtering of ‘refused classification’ material,” he claimed. Meanwhile the Internet Industry Association has welcomed the plan, as has the Opposition and the Greens, both of whom had strongly opposed the filter proposal for its ineffective nature.

Source: ABC News (thanks, Luke, Tom)

Queensland has become the latest state to join the R18+ revolution, with legislation for the change to the game classification system now being tabled in Queensland Parliament last night.

“The introduction of the R18+ classification will give parents clear and unambiguous guidance about what material is unsuitable for their children, claimed Queensland Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie, “hence protecting them from being exposed to material that may harm them.”

“It will also give adult gamers the right to make informed choices about what they want to see and hear in a computer game.”

The Northern Territory was the only Australian government left without R18+ legislation on the table, but reports today indicate they have literally only just tabled their proposed legislation today. NSW and the ACT have already passed theirs, while WA, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania are currently in the process. Roll on, January 1!

Thankyou James for pointing out that I used the old Queensland government logo!

Source: Kotaku AU

Today is the day the long-awaited IT Pricing Inquiry handed down its findings to Parliament, and those findings were clear: we are being screwed.

IT companies are “reluctant” to discuss their pricing, “even after direct request”, reported Paul Neville, Deputy Chair on the Inquiry’s Committee.

“We’re not going to accept that and we expect a better level of commitment from the industry.”

The Committee has the power of subpoena to compel companies to explain themselves, and Neville expressed his belief that they would be exercising it in the near future. Describing artificially-inflated AU prices and geoblocking as “unacceptable”, Neville claims it was time to take a firm stand on pricing disparity. Hopefully we’ll see some results — or at least some spectacular court drama — sooner rather than later.

Source: Kotaku AU (thanks, PalZer0)

The most serious issue in gaming right now: two ArmA 3 developers facing twenty years in prison for allegedly spying on a Greek military base. The two were on Lemnos when they photographed a Greek air base.

While it’s natural to want to side with the developers, the circumstances of the case are important. Next door to Lemnos is Turkey, and between the two countries are recently discovered oil reserves. Sounding like the storyline of any recent brown-sim FPS, the place is just waiting to blow up. Taking any kind of photos of Greek military bases on the ground is somewhat naive.

Today, we’ll look at how circumstances like this will reliably determine whether you get arrested for spying, and why you probably shouldn’t take a camera to Greece right now.

With the new R18+ rating coming in next year, a lot of people are asking if games previously refused classification will be reconsidered for this new rating. It seems the official word on that is, ‘No, not ever, not on your life, you violent teenagers, you.’

But that isn’t stopping NSW MP Greg Donnelly from suggesting that he will be reviewing other titles — at least 50, apparently — that have been on shelves for months, for reclassification to R18+ from MA15+. “Steps will be taken to look at what are colloquially referred to as the 50 video and computer games — at least 50 — that it is believed in one way or another have been shoe-horned into the MA 15+ category and should now be rated at the higher classification,” Donnelly has stated.

While the shoehorning of R-rated material into an MA rating was one of the main reasons behind the R18+ lobby, it does seem a little unfair that games that have been classified and on shelves for months can obtain a new classification, while adults across Australia who missed out on one game or another as it was refused classification, still miss out.

What do you think? Do you think this is a reasonable step to protect children? Or do you think games that are already classified should be stuck with the rating they were given? Or do you think it’s fine, but should go both ways, so games refused classification get a second chance? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Kotaku Australia (Thanks, Palzer0)

According to the CEO of the Game Developers’ Association of Australia, Antony Reed, the Federal Government will soon begin offering financial incentives to game developers to develop their games in Australia. There aren’t a lot of details at this point, but it has been confirmed as definitely being A Thing.

This years budget is less than previous years, offering a total of AUD $500,000 across two programs, ‘Screen Development’ and ‘Screen Marketing’. We will keep you updated as we learn more about the incentive program.

Source: MCV Pacific