In a move sure to chap the ass of former South Australia Attorney General Michael Atkinson, the Aussie federal cabinet has approved the adoption of an R18+ classification for games down under, effectively eliminating the tacit ban on any games deemed unsuitable for an R15+ – formerly the highest rating. This still has to be approved by Australian states and territories, and presumably adopted by Parliament as well, but it’s a step in the right …
Adelaide Now reports that South Australia Attorney General and game-hater Michael Atkinson has announced that he will leave Parliament in 2014, the time of the next election. Apparently the international outrage over Atkinson’s proposal to require – under penalty of a fine – that any Australian posting anything to a comment, blog, or forum be required to provide his or her true name and physical address prompted him to “fall on his sword,” as the …
For those who don’t follow such things, a bring-you-up-to-speed: the land of Australia, which I will never visit on account of the Huntsman Spider, does not have a rating classification for “mature” games – what we in the States would call M-rated games, or what our PEGI-using friends in Grand Europa would call 18-rated, or what Australia would call R-18+ if it had such a rating, which it does not. Why not? South Australian Attorney …