We get support from the wierdest places

The preliminary results of the Australia R18+ classification for video games public consultation have been released.

Let’s start with the most important number: Of the 59,678 submissions received, 98.2% were in favour of introducing an R18+ rating.  Yep, that’s right: even though video games with adult content are apparently a cancer that is killing kids, opponents of the proposal couldn’t find more than 1089 people who objected to it strongly enough to fill in a form.

The report has graphs, demographic breakdowns of respondents, results from the standardised questions on the form and summaries of the arguments made by both sides.  Of those that provided age data, the vast majority were in the 18-34 age group and male repondents outnumbered females by about 10-1.

So does this mean we’re actually going to get an R18+ classification?  No, of couse not.  ABC News reported yesterday that the state Attorneys-General think that numbers aren’t everything and “further work needs to be done before a decision can be made”.

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Dirty! Very, very dirty!

I swear, the sheer tonnage of dumb that’s coming out of Canberra on this issue makes me want to curl up in a little ball and cry.

Delimiter is reporting on communications its writers have sighted between officials from the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and Australian internet service providers on a private message board.  You can read the entire story here, but I’ll summarise the main points:

• The legislation required to make the filter law hasn’t been finished yet, even though it was due months ago.
• Bypassing the filter won’t be an offence and ISPs won’t have to filter sites that could allow you to do so, but promoting the methods for doing so might get them (and others) in trouble.
• It’s intended that the filter will be able to block entire domains, not just individual pages.
• Serious thought is apparently being given to filtering games traffic, as well as internet sites.

I guess we should be grateful that it won’t be an offence to bypass the filter and sites allowing circumvention won’t be filtered out but really, what in hell is the point of having a filter with enforcement this pissweak?!? I can hear China and Thailand snickering at our expense already: “Stupid Australians can’t even censor properly – and they dared paint themselves as being on our level?  Bah, amateurs!”

Filtering games traffic is a new issue altogether.  On the upside it’ll likely be nigh-impossible to implement but on the downside, how much time and taxpayer money is going to be wasted working that out?

This is all so silly it’s almost making me forget how much I hate McAfee this week (thanks again to Delimiter for starting me on the trail of that story).

These signs point to the internet filter going the way of the emissions trading scheme and getting shelved until after the election later this year.  I think this presents the Australian public with an opportunity to make some noise on the issue during the campaign.  If it seems unpopular enough maybe it’ll get thrown in the bin for good.

Megaphones at the ready, people?

I hope you didn't think I was going to waste this template...

The mysterious countdown on Bioware’s website has ended and unfortunately, none of our predictions came true.  Staff hadn’t been listening to too much Europe and it turns out their calendars work just fine.

What the company announced at when the timer expired was the BioWare Bazaar - a week-long series of online auctions to celebrate its 15th birthday.  Bidding will be made in tokens, which people can win by completing challenges using their Twitter accounts, and a few other specified activities.  So what’s up for grabs? Well the prizes list boasts 412 different prizes.  Here’s just a quick selection:

• Mass Effect 2 Collector’s Edition Artwork Branded Computer
• Dragon Age: Origins Black Box Art Branded Computer
• Shepard Statue (presumably town square sized)
• Griffon Hat
• Where’s Shepard Cling
• BioWare Travel Mug
• And Many More!

So what are you waiting for – go on over to the BioWare Bazaar page and get tweeting if you’re that way inclined.  Auctions begin on April 6.

… that is of course unless you happen to live in anywhere outside of the US like us, in which case you’re not actually eligible to enter.  Thanks BioWare!  We didn’t know international shipping was going to ruin your budget!

Several meticulous hours in MS Paint

Or at least that’s one of the wild theories I’m starting based on the unexplained countdown Bioware has put on its website, as well as the websites for Mass Effect 2 and and Dragon Age: Origins.

It’s due to expire Monday morning US time and in the absence of any official explanations, people have been coming up with all sorts of fun theories.  It doesn’t coincide with the release date of any already-announced DLC for Mass Effect or Dragon Age so people are speculating that it might be further DLC or, more likely, the announcement of a new game – possibly the “new next gen game” listed in the site’s navigation.

That sounds like a solid theory – but it’s got the downside of being absolutely zero fun.  So let’s jump on the bandwagon and come up with some stupid theories of our own!  Here goes:

• The countdown is never actually intended to reach zero: with two minutes left on the clock it’ll stop and Iron Maiden’s 2 Minutes to Midnight will play on all the company’s websites.
• The company will be releasing an officially-sanctioned compilation of Wrex / Shepard fan fiction.
• The announcement of an exciting new joint venture with Sheridan which will produce Dragon Age branded rat blankets.
• A public address system glitch has resulted in Europe’s The Final Countdown being played non-stop for the past week at Bioware’s offices, causing the staff to snap.
• Bioware staff got a fantastic bulk deal on desk calendars.  Unfortunately, they’re missing a few days and the company’s plans for the BEST APRIL FOOL’S DAY PRANK EVAR!!1!!!!1! will result only in confusion and annoyance among the gaming public rather than the planned epic lulz.

Feel free to speculate wildly in the comments field.  Or you could just wait four days and find out for real but where’s the lulz in that?  Watch it yourself with bated breath at the Bioware site.

The company really wants to take over news pages today, BTW.  One of its developers, Christina Norman, has been tweeting about starting work on something called “Project Wombat” for Mass Effect 3.  Apparently the limited ammo system for Mass 2 was dubbed “Project Sasquatch” while it was in the works, so it’s safe to assume the name means nothing.  Or … does it?  Read for yourself.

Kasumi: the 12th (wo)man in Shepard's squad.

There’s been a whole bunch of DLC announcements for Mass Effect 2 recently.  Here’s a quick wrap up:

First of all, the Firewalker pack containing the much-awaited hover-tank and new missions has just been released, and as promised it’s free to everyone a Cerberus Network membership.  I’ll be doing a writeup on it in the next few days.  Members can also download a new weapon for free – the Cerberus Arc Projector.

For those who want to spend 160 MS / BioWare points you can download some new threads for Garrus, Thane and Jack.  And for 80 points, 360 users can download some purty Gamerpics.  They include portraits of Tali, Thane, Samara, Grunt and of course default male-model-Shepard*.

Lastly, the worst kept secret of the lot has been confirmed – another DLC pack is coming that will give you access to a 12th squad member, Kasumi.  Expect it in early April and for it to set you back 560 points.  Naturally there’s a new loyalty mission where apparently you’ll get to do some thieving.  Sounds like fun.

That’s it for the moment, imma gonna go shake my fist at the download meter and shout “Where’s my hovertank!” for the next 28 minutes.  You can visit the official Bioware page for more info in the meantime.

* Wrex.  Shepard?  Wrex.

Mmmm, apt.

Happy Sunday everybody – Michael Atkinson, the face of the “video games are part of the cancer that is killing /kids/” campaign and probably the biggest obstacle to Australia finally getting an R18+ rating for games, has announced that he is retiring from the front bench of the South Australian Labor government.

While Atkinson will remain in parliament on the back bench, this does mean he’ll be giving up the post of state Attorney General and therefore will lose his power of veto on the game rating issue.  Which is a good thing, since in the past he’s claimed he would block an R18+ rating regardless of public opinion or the outcome of the public consultation process being run by the Federal Government.

This also means, of course, that we’ll never get to find out if he would’ve excercised his wicked-l33t backflipping skills on the issue (like he did for internet censorship).  Pity.

Just to add insult to injury, the Adelaide Now story announcing the news is carrying a poll in its sidebar asking readers “Are you happy that Michael Atkinson will no longer be South Australia’s Attorney General?”. At the time of writing the score was 427 yes, 19 no.  Seems he’s not really going to be missed.

We probably shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves because there’s no guarantee that Atkinson’s replacement is going to be any better for those looking for a little sanity in our games rating systems, but for now let’s just savour the moment.

In related news Kat Nicholson, who was standing against Atkinson as the Gamers4Croydon candidate, secured around 3.7% of the vote according to the South Australian Electoral Commission.  While this isn’t perhaps the wave of support they might have hoped for, it is significantly less than the “less than one percent” Michael Atkinson controversially predicted they’d recieve.  Fellow G4C candidate Chris Prior also looks unlikely to secure a seat on the state Legislative Council at the current time, although an outside hope remains with approximately 75% of the ballots counted.

Jesus face-palm

I know I use the term “facepalm” a lot, but there’s really no other way succinct way to sum up the ongoing debate over R18+ games in Australia.

The newest meeting of hand and forehead comes courtesy of a story published today over at news.com.au, which revealed that everybody’s favourite state attorney Michael Atkinson has donated large sums of money to the Australian Council on Children and the Media.

The Australian Council on Children and the Media, also known as Young Media Australia, are the fun-loving sorts who claimed earlier in the week that video games are more closely linked to youth crime than smoking is to lung cancer.  Even though their own written submission states the connection is tenuous, unlikely to cause harm in any case and is based on a study that examined all media, not just games.

For what it’s worth though, this same group also believes that Bananas in Pyjamas is too violent for small children to watch because slapstick comedy is bad, m’kay?  Atkinson has made donations (reportedly in excess of $30,000) to the council’s “Know Before You Go” campaign, which seeks to inform parents of the dangers of letting their children watch G-rated movies like Finding Nemo*, Alvin and the Chipmunks** and The Tale of Desperaux.

What’s a little odd about all this is it’s usually groups like the Council giving money to politicians, not the other way around.  I don’t think it’s anything we need to be too concerned about, it’s just interesting that the two stupidest things ever said in this debate are linked by a five-figure donation.

* They also warn against letting small chilren watch the G-rated Ponyo.  I’m smelling a bias against cute animated fish here…

** The Council and I are actually in agreement on this one, though likely not for the same reasons.

Every copy of Imagine Horsez is doing a completely different kind of damage

Just when you thought this debate couldn’t get any fucking sillier…

First it was gamers being more dangerous than outlaw bikie gangs.  That was pretty hard to believe, right?  Well steel yourselves, because (a drumroll please) apparently the link between gaming and youth crime is even stronger than the link between smoking and lung cancer.

The abovementioned claim is made by Dr Wayne Warburton of the Council on Children and the Media in this news story aired on Channel 10 last night after he addressed a parliamentary inquiry on street violence.  He quotes a study claiming that “the average child in their childhood sees 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence”.  From this, we’re apparently meant to make the leap that games are more strongly linked to youth crime than smoking is to lung cancer.

If you go digging for a bit and pull out the Council on Children and the Media’s actual submission to the inquiry, however, you’ll find that the “gaming is worse than smoking claim” comes from one study done by an Amercian researcher that refers to violence in all media (TV, movies and music), not just games.  In fact pretty much every source Council references in their submission talks about television or the media as a whole, not games.

We also find that the claim about children “seeing 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence” is from another American study which refers specifically to television, not games.

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The original Worms: was geometry ever more fun than this?

You read it right – Team 17 wants to give you worms.  Steamed worms.  It’s OK, even I’m facepalming at how unfunny that was and I’m going to  abandon that train of thought right … now.

There’s not a lot to go on at this stage but Martyn Brown from Team 17 (the company that brought us the original Worms titles dating back to 1994, as well as a bunch of other stuff I never played) has tweeted that there will be a new 2D Worms title being released on Steam in the near future.  All we’ve been given at this stage is a title, Worms Reloaded, and a promise of more details to come soon.  Unless you can find some secret code in his tweet that I can’t.

If memory serves me right this should lead to a great deal of mouse-sharing, obscenity-hurling fun.  More news (hopefully involving exploding sheep) as it comes to hand.

Commander Keen, no doubt rushing to the 2010 GDC award ceremony

The organisers of the 2010 Game Developer’s Conference announced yesterday that John Carmack will be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards.

Carmack was the co-founder of iD Software and if you’re anything like me you’ll have been playing his games since you first sat in front of a PC.  His first big title was the Commander Keen series but it was Wolfenstein 3D and the Doom series that shot him and iD to prominence.

Carmack and former partner-in-crime John Romero are generally acknowledged as the fathers of the first person shooter genre, a title they confirmed when they knocked out a little game called Quake that wasn’t the least bit revolutionary or anything but people seemed to like it regardless.

The award will be presented in San Fransisco on March 11.  Previous recipients include the guy behind Civilization, the guy behind Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda and the guy behind Sim City and The Sims.  So, y’know, a bunch of lightweights that nobody’s ever heard of.  Winners are chosen by a panel of gaming industry experts including representatives from EA, Bioware and Ubisoft.

Click here for the official release.