• deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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    2 months ago

    Australia continues to treat its residents as criminals who cannot be trusted with naughty things.

    • BadlyDrawnRhino @aussie.zone
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      2 months ago

      We’ve had an R18+ rating for video games since 2013, so not sure why Hotline Miami 2 wouldn’t have been able to receive classification.

      Funnily enough, I own the game on Steam, so at some point Valve also made the same mistake. But at least they won’t pull the game from my library.

      • mindbleach
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        2 months ago

        The root problem is that not-being-classified counts as a ban, rather than defaulting to adults-only.

        • BadlyDrawnRhino @aussie.zone
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          2 months ago

          Oh, absolutely. I was only commenting on the weird timing, the game was released 2 years after an adult rating for video games was implemented.

          We definitely have an odd and often archaic view on things here in Aus. Personally I think the classifications should be a purely informative system rather than something that decides whether or not something should be banned. Films are given much more artistic leeway than video games, and I could rant for hours on the government’s stance on gambling, which is much more harmful than most things you’d find portrayed in any artistic medium.

  • Zozano@lemy.lol
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    2 months ago

    For the uninitiated, the game was banned, not because of the gratuitous violence, extreme drug use, and themes involving fugue states, war crimes and cold war conspiracy,

    But because of a scene depicting rape.

    Except, the “depiction” was simply a character, from a pixelated top-down view, climbing onto the other character. No nudity, no thrusting - then…

    The director yells “CUT!”

    Turns out, it was a movie being filmed. So even within the context of the game, it wasn’t rape, it was an abstraction of an abstraction, WITHIN an abstraction.

    Ratings board are morons.

    As an Aussie, I was lucky to have a friend gift this to me on Steam.

  • affiliate@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    i’ve been clutching my pearls for the past 10 years but it’s nice to know i can rest easy tonight

  • mindbleach
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    2 months ago

    The fact that’s even possible is a crime.

  • Dvixen@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    And only pulled after some pearl clutching nanny noticed and decided to point out the original ruling.

    Not the first time someone had a dummy spit over a game that is less problematic than the average M rated movie…