SA Attorney-General to appeal Modern Warfare 2 rating

PALGN News | He's not a big fan of the Classification Board.

Michael Atkinson, the South Australian Attorney-General and outspoken campaigner against violence in video games, has revealed that he will be challenging the MA15+ rating given to Infinity Ward shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

"I’ll be appealing against that classification, I think it’s wrong," Atkinson told Radio National (via Kotaku). "[The classification] doesn’t surprise me. The Classification Board in Australia does everything to try to get games in under the radar. But just because the system is not being applied properly, it does not mean that the principles of the system are wrong.

"What I want the Classification Board to do is to apply the guidelines properly. What I don’t want is the extremely violent, sexually depraved, drug use games in Australia at all. At the cinema, we can stop people under 18 going in to see R18+ rated movies. We can’t stop these games that are extremely violent and depraved from getting into the home or getting into the hands of children."

Atkinson didn't hold back on his opinion of the Classification Board either, stating that, even if a R18+ rating would eventually come to pass, he would use his role in drawing up for the guidelines for the rating to make sure that "extremely violent, sexually depraved, drug use games" wouldn't slip through the cracks.

"I have no trust in the Classification Board to apply the guidelines sincerely and correctly...thus to draw up such guidelines would be to do so in sure and certain knowledge that they would be stretched and then broken."

When asked about the Commonwealth discussion paper on the R18+ rating, due to be released to the public in April earlier this year, Atkinson said that he did not know why it had not been released.

For the latest on the R18+ debate, check out the EveryonePlays Blog.

Related Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Content

Modern Warfare 2 DLC priced
16 Mar, 2010 Map details within.

Rumour: New Call of Duty title set in Vietnam?
07 Jan, 2010 Wake up screaming like I'm back over there.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Review
14 Nov, 2009 Another good call for the console shooter?

PagePrevious 1 234 5 Next

100 Comments

Fetidchimp

3 months ago

Honestly does it even matter if a kid sees a zombie game.........i saw plenty good movies when i was young, i never killed a zombie in my life, honest.

JackSlack

3 months ago

Yeah, Clean Feed well and truly deserves more of our attention. It's the far more frightening development.

RXWAG

3 months ago

mikezilla2 wrote

RXWAG wrote

Does he realise how easy it is on the net to get access to sexually depraved content? A simple google search will show it up...

Maybe google should be rated R18+....This guy is such a joker. Should just start a rumour about him....Isn't it the parents duty to stop their children from playing or seeing this kind of content....?

didn't you hear - he plans to fix that too

thats the other problem on our hands , right now we will foucs on the 18+ rateing then im afraid the clean feed is also a matter .

No! He cant take away, *****.com or *********.com!!! I'll have his head!

Slipvayne21

3 months ago

Please suffer a heart attack soon.

MaTBoY

3 months ago

Post removed. - James

Fetidchimp

3 months ago

If he was a FAG! i doubt he would want to ban any of it....

JackSlack

3 months ago

Can we drop the homophobic slurs, please?

Fetidchimp

3 months ago

Edit - **** it, you think what you like

MaTBoY

3 months ago

It was actually a reference to team america, but whatever. free speech and all that jazz...

Fetidchimp

3 months ago

ah. i haven't seen it so i missed that....

Black Wolf

3 months ago

Sambo110 wrote

It won't get banned. It's too big and 70% of the people who want it will already have it anyway. No big loss even if it did, multiplayer is too laggy to enjoy.

Oh no? Left 4 Dead 2 was also a high-profile game and it was rejected on the grounds that it was child-unfriendly.

GooberMan

3 months ago

mikezilla2 wrote

thats the other problem on our hands , right now we will foucs on the 18+ rateing then im afraid the clean feed is also a matter .

This is why Australia needs protected freedom of expression and freedom of information. Any laws introduced to the contrary will result in massive civil disobedience.

plantshot

3 months ago

I agree with some of those games he talks about in the Radio National interview but I don't think there can't be an R18+ classification. Under this system these games should not be passed. However games like COD 4 MW 2 and L4D 2 should.

lapzod

3 months ago

GooberMan wrote

Any laws introduced to the contrary will result in massive civil disobedience.

I disagree with this, which is how we got into the trouble in the first place.

James

3 months ago

MaTBoY wrote

It was actually a reference to team america, but whatever. free speech and all that jazz...

Possibly, but to everyone who didn't 'get' it, it was offensive. I've removed the post.

ObsoletE

3 months ago

plantshot wrote

the stupid part of his argument, is that those games (RAPELAY etc.) wouldn't pass even if there was an R18+ rating.

and even if we removed the (presumed - since i've heard nothing about this game other than the name) violence associated with the title and focussed on something in the vein of a Strip Poker game, these probably still wouldn't get an R rating, since they'd really fall under an X18+ bracket.

yet somehow he's suggesting that a theme, that wouldn't even be allowed as an X18+ film (if it were real sex, and not simulated) due to being sexualised violence would get an R-rating.

it's arse-backward, and i'm sure he knows it, but it's got the emotional shock factor of "OMG there's really Rape-based video games out there? how sick!" behind it.

EDIT: and on re-reading your post, i get the feeling this is kinda what you were arguing in the first place. apologies if i grabbed the wrong end of the stick.

Infested Jibbs

3 months ago

Am i still the only one that is still utterly GOBSMACKED (i so rarely get to use that word) that grand theft auto chinatown wars got through with an MA rating?

The hard swear words, the violence but most of all, the realistic representation of drugs!

Fallout was castrated into using crap like MED-X to cover up it's drug use, but somehow, chinatown gets the green light to drug trafficking, with drugs such as heroin, acid, cocaine all widely available from dealers.

It's a total 'idiots guide to dealing drugs'......real world names-check.Etiquette of drug dealing(meeting in alleys etc), conversation on topics related to drugs such as 'cutting it down' etc.

Blown away Jerry.

If i was classifying that game i would have knocked it back for a MA 15+ in a heartbeat.If they changed the drug dealing aspect to dealing in 'hot' stuff aka stolen tv's, vcr's etc i would have passed it.

Stealing vs drug dealing, lesser of two evils i guess.

I mean, this is the same system where cooking mama and 'Poniez' rule the roost, and for a bomb of a game like that to drop, complete with cartoon style animated cover, would lead many a stray soccer mom into buying the game for lil billy thinking that all ds games would be suitable for ds owners, aka, lil kids (big people don't play ds do they, besides Olivia Newton John 'learning' with brain training).

plantshot

3 months ago

ObsoletE wrote

plantshot wrote

apologies if i grabbed the wrong end of the stick.

No mate, your right. He always resorts to extreme examples of games that would get refused classification. At the bottom of his heart he knows people don't really want games like COD MW 2 and L4D 2 banned so he resorts to these obscene examples to argue we are at the thin end of the wedge.

JackSlack

3 months ago

Quote

No mate, your right. He always resorts to extreme examples of games that would get refused classification.

It's actually very similar to the NVE rating debacle. Most of the examples that were shown to politicians were examples that in fact would have been banned under the classifications for NVE. (Trying to find an appropriate link here.)

Matrix6

3 months ago

That interview just made him sound so naive with his very own words.

PALGN wrote

"At the cinema, we can stop people under 18 going in to see R18+ rated movies."

Is he that naive to believe that people under 18 years old have never been able to get into a film in that classification? It's been going on since cinemas started, and nothing has changed. In fact "children" can very easily obtain R18+ films at home without leaving their own room!

Does he really believe his own children won't watch a film above their age limit classification? :O

PALGN wrote

"I have no trust in the Classification Board to apply the guidelines sincerely and correctly..."

In the political world, he pretty much walked himself out of the cabinet.

oomlot

3 months ago

PALGN wrote

At the cinema, we can stop people under 18 going in to see R18+ rated movies. We canâ€™t stop these games that are extremely violent and depraved from getting into the home or getting into the hands of children."

It's like he's unaware of home video at this point. I take it that means he doesn't own a dvd player.

oomlot

3 months ago

And there's this. I can't afford my prestige edition until after christmas, so if that game gets recalled and I lose my night vision goggles, I think wrath will be fair and justified.

Cyph

3 months ago

Let's all keep our enthusiasm on this topic in check and under control and think rationally about this appeal from our favourite SA Attorney General; the more attention he directs to this subject the greater the chance we, the gaming community, have to make our voices heard, and hopefully, gain main stream support.

Gamesta

3 months ago

All I can say is that when we have the next state elections I'm gonna tell everyone I know to vote this ***** last.

Infested Jibbs wrote

Am i still the only one that is still utterly GOBSMACKED (i so rarely get to use that word) that grand theft auto chinatown wars got through with an MA rating?

No you are not.I remember the first time I heard that you can buy/sell drugs and saw that the drugs were visible and I thought the game would definitely be RC'd here.

Ken_Gooner

3 months ago

Whats he going to do? Ban it?
Good luck.

Besides, Raner has a good point.
Kids manage to get a hold of booze, fags, porn and all of that. I don't see the government rushing to ban it all. But they are trying to make sure kids don't get their hands on it.

Whats so different with video games?

Now that I've played No Russian, I'm going to grab a machine gun, walk into an airport and start mercilessly killing people. My young mind doesn't understand what is wrong and right.
PS. even if there was an R18 rating, this game should still get MA15.

PagePrevious 1 234 5 Next

View as forum topic

Add Comment

Like this news?

Share it with this tiny url: http://palg.nu/3N5

| More

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Pre-order or buy:
PALGN recommends: www.Play-Asia.com