This week’s edition is a little different, in that there’s no set format, just a roundtable discussion of the past week’s events. TJ raves about Owl Boy, Jonah talks about N7 Day and the new Mass Effect: Andromeda revelations, and everyone on the podcast discusses how games have really been a disappointment this year and not much is coming. Oh, and a $99 3DS coming for Black Friday.
Let us know what you think.
A new draft of the R18+ classification has been released by home minister Brendan O’Connor through the Australian Federal Government. The new guidelines closely match those in place for Australia’s film industry. The new R18+ rating removes restrictions on bad language, drug use and nudity; in contrast, the current guidelines forbade the classification of any adult-themed games.
O’Connor’s draft claims that the R18+ rating will allow “virtually no restrictions on the treatment of themes”, and violence in games “except where it offends against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that it should not be classified.” As far as sex, the draft says, “Sexual activity may be realistically simulated. The general rule is ‘simulation, yes – the real thing, no'”.
Of course, “standards of morality, decency and propriety” is still troublesomely subjective, while “simulation, yes, the real thing, no” is comicly inept for videogames, where everything is simulation. You may be able to tell when live actors are actually performing sexual acts, but when can you tell a videogame character is actually having sex?
O’Connor stated:
“The Gillard government wants to provide better guidance for parents and remove unsuitable material from children and teenagers. The introduction of an R18+ classification will help achieve that and will also bring Australia into line with comparable nations. This issue has been on the table for many years, without the necessary progress to make a change. We’ve recently seen several states publicly express their support for an adult only rating for games and I’m keen to reach a unanimous decision at the July meeting.”
Rather than banning games, why not punish stores for selling mature games to underage children? Or put the onus of raising children on the parents?
For the second week in a row, the podcast has had some technical issues. This time the problem was less, but there are still present. Part of the reason is that the mic is subpar, the other is that the PC it’s being recorded on has a damaged fan. That said, this week’s episode (and the unreleased episode) were really good. The unpublished one will be issued at some future date when we all need a break (maybe over the Christmas week.)
This week’s episode includes:
Let us know what your favorite 2016 game has been.
This week’s episode is light on news but heavy on features, as the Gaming Flashback checks out the coin-op arcade racer Omega Race while the Gaming History looks at the failed GameBoy Micro.
This week’s news includes:
We also have a single Reader Feedback and the Question of the Week is, “What is your game purchase in the Fall season with the highest priority?”
