tooth soup

photo credit: Michael Heilemann

This just in from Tim’s blog; apparently Fallout 3 has been banned in Australia. What this means in legal terms is that it was refused a classification by the OFLC (Office of Film and Literature Classification), which in turn means that it was deemed to have more mature content than a MA15+ badge could handle. That’s right, there still isn’t an R18+ rating on games here in Australia. There are way too many reasons why this is plainly ridiculous, I’m sure you’ve already thought of a couple, e.g. the gaming market now has a large demographic in their 20s, movies have had this classification for decades now (books too), there’s a whole lot of stuff that appears in games regularly that can’t be handled by a piddly little MA15+ rating, the list goes on. I’ll leave that issue where it stands for the moment, because it’s one that’s been questioned many times before and it doesn’t look like it’ll get past the stuffy types at the OFLC until some new folk who have, in their time, ‘pwned some shit’, breeze through. What I’d like to look at is the reasoning why the game got banned in the first place. Take a look at an extract from this article at Kotaku:

“The game contains the option to take a variety of “chems” using a device which is connected to the character’s arm. Upon selection of the device a menu selection screen is displayed. Upon this screen is a list of “chems” that the player can take, by means of selection. These “chems” have positive effects and some negitave effects (lowering of intelligence, or the character may become addicted to the “chem”). The positive effects include increase in strength, stamina, resistance to damage, agility and hit points. Corresponding with the list of various “chems” are small visual representation of the drugs, these include syringes, tablets, pill bottles, a crack-type pipe and blister packs. In the Board’s view these realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method bring the “science-fiction” drugs in line with “real-world” drugs.”

Now I don’t know about anyone else, but I can name off the bat more than a few games that use drugs as a mechanism for attribute boosting. The one that comes most directly to mind is the critically acclaimed Bioshock. Anyone that has played that game knows that there are multiple scenes of the player grabbing a needle, jabbing it into his arm, and becoming more poweful as a result. Just because the liquid inside the needle is blue doesn’t make the perceived action/reaction any different. Any game that has the much-used ’stimpacks’ device is merely holding a thin sheath of technology over drug use.

I think that the developers should be congratulated on their attempt to make the game as accurate as possible. In the real world, it’s a fact that some drugs give a sense of heightened agility, or an increase in perceived ’stamina’ (i.e. staying awake all night dancing). But eventually you get the come down, or addiction settles in. I’m hoping that the addiction penalty in-game is as harsh as it is in real life. I’d love to see a permanent modifier applied to a statistic as a result of a prior addiction. Hell, I’d love to see death occur. Obviously I can’t say for certain what the mechanic of the chems’ interaction with the rest of the elements of the game will be like, because I haven’t played it. But I’d predict that the core of the game will be the usual gradual building up of strength, training, being rewarded for doing good (or commiting to evil). The chems sound like flavour, not a core gameplay aspect. And a risky flavouring at that (much like the chilli sachet on instant Mi-Goreng, hot damn).

Of course what will probably happen now is in order to get an official release here, the publisher will be forced to go back, skin a few models, change a few words here and there and re-release it a few months later. But every parent knows that the easiest way to get a child to do something is to tell them they’re not allowed to do it. Kids aren’t stupid. They know places like thepiratebay.org, and isohunt.com. They’ve known them from the first week they stepped onto the wide world of the interwebs, they were shown them by the modern-day version of Johnny with the porno mag. They are tech-savvy enough to navigate something as antiquated as a ban on information stored digitally within a few minutes. By the time it’s re-released, the kids that really wanted to play it in the first place will have downloaded it, cracked it, finished it, and told their friends about it. So when their friends play it, they’ll know that there are drugs in this game, and when they use the ‘medicostim’ or whatever crack gets renamed to, they’re really shooting up.

I’m focussing on the futility of banning PC games, but that’s because I’m a PC gamer. I feel sorry for the poor bastards that have PS3s, or XB360s, that will be forced to wait to play a dumbed-down game. Surely there’s got to be some way of letting people mature enough to play an adult game buy that game and play it without needing skinned models. Oh, that’s right, an R18+ rating. Oh, but kids might just get their parents to buy the game and then play it! Well shit, then it’s the parents fault, not the developers. And hell, parents might actually want to use the game as an educational tool. Slightly far-fetched given Australia’s conservative parent population, but it’s entirely possible that exposure to such a game with the presence of an adult explaining the effects of drugs could help equip the young adult deal better with the presence of drugs in his/her life. Eh, I’m out of things to say on the topic. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs, and I really hope that the OFLC get their act together and realise that adults play games too.

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