It’s not often that state politicians get uppity about games being banned, but the situation around DayZ saw one MP vent his frustrations about our classification guidelines in the Victorian legislature.
Tim Quilty, a member of the Liberal Democrats — the same minor party former senator David Leyonhjelm led until he left recently — had a rant in the Victorian upper house about DayZ‘s ban recently. PC Gamer first reported about the MP’s question to the state’s Attorney General, which was really just an opportunity to call Australia the “laughing stock of the whole world” and an our classification system as an “embarrassment”.
“Refusal of classification should be reserved for illegal materials, things like child pornography and snuff films that should have never have been created in the first place. It should not be used for zombie survival video games,” Quilty said.
Quilty pushed the state Attorney General to allow games that contain “adult themes including drug use” to be sold in Australia. It’s a bit of a pointless request, mind you: even if Victoria wanted to allow the sale of those games, Australia’s classification system would need to create a separate classification to allow the sale of those games, since state legislation doesn’t permit the sale of most games (or films and literature) until it’s been classified — and anything classified RC can’t be sold in Australia, period.
That’s how our weird system works, and if Quilty wants it changed, then he might want to start lobbying other, more conservative states that have just as much sway on what games Victorians can play as Victoria does.
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/08/dont-blame-the-classification-board-for-dayz-blame-the-government/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/08/dayz-1-410×231.jpg” title=”Don’t Blame The Classification Board For DayZ, Blame The Government” excerpt=”Games don’t get banned all that often, and every time it happens there’s a surge of interest in Australia’s archaic classification system. That’s generally followed by a torrent of abuse against the Classification Board, occasionally Australia itself, and more recently, a bit of public vitriol directly against the members of the board.”]
DayZ is still for sale on Steam, but it’s been pulled from the respective console stores. I can’t imagine Steam got some kind of special dispensation to leave the game up, and I’ll keep an eye on how that situation unfolds throughout the week.
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