It’s Like 1984, Except With Classification And Video Games


Remember in Back to the Future 2 when Marty McFly goes back in time and everything’s totally screwed up because Biff Tannen stole the almanac? Well this fictional R18+ story is a bit like that. Written by Raygun Brown, it’s a cautionary tale. We’re so close to an adult rating for games in Australia, but what would happen if it was snatched away?

The section below is just part of Raygun’s tale of woe — click here to read the whole thing!

The young man stood and started to pace the room. His mind was firing in all directions. He couldn’t believe anything this old man was saying. He refused to accept his country was like this. Prosecuting people for importing pieces of entertainment widely accepted in other parts of the world? This was crazy.

“Look, this is ridiculous. I knew about the R rating not going through but…wait, did it go through? I don’t remember. I was only just born at the time.”

“Exactly. You have no idea whether it did or not, do you? Why is that?”

The young man stopped pacing. “I don’t know, I just…I guess it wasn’t important. What happened to it then, if you’re so smart? Do you remember?”

“Yes I do, as a matter of fact.”

The old man moved to the window. Sky highways were commonplace in this city but this new twenty four-lane monstrosity was a disaster waiting to happen. He looked at it through the window with a sense of dread.

“It was complacency that killed us. After so many years, we started to believe that the government actually would introduce the R18+ rating in 2013. The House of Representatives actually passed it. That’s when we got lazy. It got eaten alive in the Senate and delayed even further. Extremist religious groups pushed their local representatives again and again and everything became…I don’t know…helpless. Our outrage was replaced by apathy and we simply gave up. And half the people who were campaigning for the mature rating since 2002 just didn’t have it in them to keep going after it was delayed again. Everyone just seemed to imperceptibly cave. They saw this delay, and the subsequent permanent overruling of the rating in 2014, as the final straw. Hilarious, if you ask me, since we had so many final straws.”

Thanks for sending it in Raygun!


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