Gamers 4 Croydon founder David Doe has quit his day job to focus his efforts full-time in running against Michael Atkinson at next year’s South Australian state election.
As Australia’s first gamers rights political party, Doe is campaigning primarily on the issue of an R18+ classification for video games. He will be standing a candidate against staunch R18+ opponent Atkinson in the seat of Croydon at the March 2010 state election.
Until recently, Doe had worked as the Quality Assurance Manager at a Melbourne games development studio. But he’s now decided to “put his money where his mouth is” and work full-time on the Gamers 4 Croydon campaign.
“As much as I love testing videogames for a living, there is something more pressing that needs my attention for the next few months and, sadly, they cannot co-exist,” Doe writes on the G4C website. “The quality of my work in both spheres was beginning to suffer and I want to make sure I excel at one of these endeavours for the next few months at least.
“With thanks to my wonderfully understanding and supportive wife, and some good savings strategies, I’ve resigned from my position as QA Manager and am now working on the Gamers4Croydon campaign full-time.”
The move to step-up the G4C campaign comes in the same week the federal government finally released the discussion paper on an R18+ classification for video games to the Australian public.
“This is one more step towards having a responsible classification system that seeks to appropriately label all content,” Doe told Kotaku. “I am hopeful that we will be able to mobilise as many gamers, responsible parents and civil-minded individuals to show their support for the rating.
Doe also has some advice for Kotaku readers looking to make a submission:
“Read and re-read the questions before answering them,” he says, “then draft, re-read, then spell-check your comments before sending it through. We have until the end of February, so there is no need to completely inundate the Classification Review with emails, faxes and letters today.
“Tell your friends and family! Print extra copies and take it them to the next barbecue and talk to people about it. Get them to give their honest opinion about it and offer to send it in for them. We need to be the motivating force behind the positive submissions, because just as surely as we’re doing it from our end, you can put good money that the ‘against’ team will be out in force as well.”
Full-time [Gamers 4 Croydon]
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