Disco Elysium banned in Australia

[Siobhan Halo]

Australia urged to move on from ‘moral panic’ over video games after Disco Elysium banned

The banning of video game Disco Elysium from sale in Australia has renewed calls for the Australian government to overhaul the classification system to move away from the “moral panic” associated with video games.

On Friday afternoon, the Australian classification board announced Disco Elysium – The Final Cut was refused classification on the grounds the game was found to “depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena” in a way that offended “against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults”. It ruled the game should not be classified.

The post-war murder mystery role-playing game has won over a dozen industry awards since its release in 2019. The game has been available in Australia for two years through the Steam online games store, but the game’s developers, ZA/UM planned to launch the game on consoles this month, meaning before it could be sold in stores in Australia, it had to go to the classification board for review.

According to Kotaku, in the game, characters can consume drugs, which – despite it being allowed in other forms of media such as TV and movies – is banned in video games.

The chief executive of the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association, Ron Curry, told Guardian Australia the game has been “widely acclaimed for its artistry, depth, creativity and innovation” but said he was not surprised it was banned given the track record of games being banned in Australia.

“Games are treated differently and the classification guidelines do not hide it. In spite of the government’s own research to the contrary, when an R18+ classification was introduced for games they still insisted on making interactivity a determinant in classifying games, unlike film and publications,” he said.

“There are also other restrictions levelled at games around violence, sex, drug use and incentives that aren’t applied to film.”

Curry said the current classification system is out of date.

...

[starsocks]

???

is this a real thing?

I'm australian and I've definitely played video games where characters have done drugs

[Siobhan Halo]

5 minutes ago, choiyujins said:

???

is this a real thing?

I'm australian and I've definitely played video games where characters have done drugs

The classification for physical games is where the rules block things, digital content (Steam, etc) is uncensored, which makes the other rules largely pointless.

[starsocks]

1 minute ago, Siobhan Halo said:

The classification for physical games is where the rules block things, digital content (Steam, etc) is uncensored, which makes the other rules largely pointless.

ahhhhh ok yeah I just buy them on platforms lol

anyway censorship is dumb

they should worry more about politicians raping people xx

[Siobhan Halo]

1 minute ago, choiyujins said:

ahhhhh ok yeah I just buy them on platforms lol

anyway censorship is dumb

they should worry more about politicians raping people xx

Fun fact: Fallout's original name for Med-x was morphine but it was changed because of Australia's weird ass drugs-in-games laws.

[starsocks]

1 minute ago, Siobhan Halo said:

Fun fact: Fallout's original name for Med-x was morphine but it was changed because of Australia's weird ass drugs-in-games laws.

the more you know...