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Australian gaming
toastergargletop
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
hi bodies,
so i'm new to these forums, but i had to join because PA has gotten me so worked up about the state of gaming and shit in Australia. Here is some fun facts, feel free to comment with things like "that is crap" or "oh my" or even "you are full of shit toastergargletop, if indeed that is your REAL name".
Fact Number One: Did you know that in Australia, we pay approximately %150 of a games american retail value? and thats before even factoring in currency exchange and what not. For me to buy a copy of WAR would cost around au$100. TERRIFIC! For what reason, you ask? Well! it's because the game industry likes to fuck us, nice and hard. There is no good reason that anyone can give, we will pay more so we do pay more! YAY!
Fact Number Two: Did you know that Australia does not have a rating for video games above M15+. that rating means that you must be above 15 years old to play the game. all content that does not comply to these standards does not get into the country! AWESOME! that means that the VAST MAJORITY of gamers in Australia don't get access to the same types of games available in other countries unless the developer completely NERFS the game! we won't get.........well fuck all good games!
Fact Number Three: Did you know that Australia is currently trying to pass a law that requires all internet to be filtered and censored? RADICAL! that means that we will not be able to do SHIT with the internet, our speeds will drop and the price will go up! SUPER COOL!
Australia: APPARENTLY WE LIKE BEING FUCKED IN THE ASS.
from, your new aussie friend
toastergargletop
so i'm new to these forums, but i had to join because PA has gotten me so worked up about the state of gaming and shit in Australia. Here is some fun facts, feel free to comment with things like "that is crap" or "oh my" or even "you are full of shit toastergargletop, if indeed that is your REAL name".
Fact Number One: Did you know that in Australia, we pay approximately %150 of a games american retail value? and thats before even factoring in currency exchange and what not. For me to buy a copy of WAR would cost around au$100. TERRIFIC! For what reason, you ask? Well! it's because the game industry likes to fuck us, nice and hard. There is no good reason that anyone can give, we will pay more so we do pay more! YAY!
Fact Number Two: Did you know that Australia does not have a rating for video games above M15+. that rating means that you must be above 15 years old to play the game. all content that does not comply to these standards does not get into the country! AWESOME! that means that the VAST MAJORITY of gamers in Australia don't get access to the same types of games available in other countries unless the developer completely NERFS the game! we won't get.........well fuck all good games!
Fact Number Three: Did you know that Australia is currently trying to pass a law that requires all internet to be filtered and censored? RADICAL! that means that we will not be able to do SHIT with the internet, our speeds will drop and the price will go up! SUPER COOL!
Australia: APPARENTLY WE LIKE BEING FUCKED IN THE ASS.
from, your new aussie friend
toastergargletop
toastergargletop on
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When I was growing up in New Zealand, the video store would stock movies that proudly displayed a "Banned in Australia" notice. Your censorship probably sold a lot of films with Kiwi teenagers.
So, it didnt surprise us when the whole Fallout debacle flared up...
Picture on whirlpool sums up my view. Our government is retarded.
http://nocleanfeed.com/
Fact number one: when I lived in New Zealand many years ago, the average cost of a new car was about $10,000 more than it would have been back here in North America. Clearly the auto industry has a similar obsession with the anal sphincters of Kiwis! Again, there's no way it was related to the fact that New Zealand is an even smaller island on the bottom of the world.
Fact number two: as recently as last year, books in Canada cost, on average, about 30% more than their US versions, before adjusting for exchange rate. Half of these books were even printed in Canada, but we still paid through the nose for them. Games used to be a lot more expensive, too; I remember paying $91 for my copy of Quake 3, like, 8-9 years ago.
Fact number three: in Tuktoyaktuk, in the Northwest Territories of Canada, a gallon of milk sells for $16 during the winter. Highway robbery! God, the dairy industry loves ass-raping those Inuit.
Fact number zero: items are priced differently in different regions of the world as a result of many factors, including supply and demand, shipping times and costs, tariffs and import taxes, distance from primary shipping routes, and place of origin. This is a simple reality of the global economy! Until we invent teleporters that allow low- or no-cost transmission of physical goods from one side of the world to another, it is a simple axiom of life that somebody, somewhere, is always getting fucked on the cost of something they buy.
[The More You Know.jpg]
And you are being fucked over too, so what?
Milk and games are entirely different products produced in entirely different ways.
So why do other PAL countries get raped?
It isn't exactly unknown for companies to exorbitantly price a product in one area and then sell it for a decent price in a different area even if both products are produced where they are sold.
Your case studies are irrelevant, other countries are getting fucked over as well. Shipping large amounts of CDs/DvDs is not expensive in relation to the overall cost of the item. There are no tariffs or import taxes on video games entering Australia. So yes we do get fucked largely on video games prices, which is why i buy most of mine from overseas, however now that our currency has gone to shit it doesn't help much. A few months ago we were paying around 200% the price that a US consumer pays for the same product, now its around 130-140 (see exchange rate), which is still pretty poor.
On the no R18 equivalent for video games this should have happened a long time ago and really there are no reasonable arguments against it save ones that also apply to every other media format that already have R18 ratings.
And yes the internet thing is bullshit. I really really hope Turnbull and the Greens (or Fielding) make an effort at sinking it.
its that one S.A dude who is fucking up the rating system.
Kate of Lokys-
"Until we invent teleporters that allow low- or no-cost transmission of physical goods from one side of the world to another, it is a simple axiom of life that somebody, somewhere, is always getting fucked on the cost of something they buy."
yeah, its called downloading when your talking 'bout digital shit.
pirating is going to go through the fucking roof in australia. I'd like to know the stats for aussie pirating as it stands now, and how much its going to increase now that our dollar is fucked and people can't afford the overpriced watered down versions of games they flog us.
That is awesome. Your PM or whatever looks like a total fuck-cheese with bad teeth from the motherland to boot. But it looks like that was intentional or something.
Still, awesome picture.
Okay now fucking explain why buying Call of Duty 4 from Steam costs me twice as much as it costs people in America arsehole?
Regarding the internet censorship (which I consider the real crime here)
from the article: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24568137-2862,00.html
EFA board member Colin Jacobs said it would have little effect on illegal internet content, including child pornography, as it would not cover file-sharing networks.
So how exactly does this blocking work?
Also, I get the impression someone in government walked in on the kid wanking off to internet p0rn and now he's got his panties all twisted up over the fact.
If I lived there and this shit affected my ping times I would be pissed. Someone needs to explain to your gov. that making the AUS/rest-of-the-world ping times worse is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
because shipping all those bits is expensive! It's not like we have some low-cost way of shipping data halfway around the world!
That would be so boring, everything should be decided with rugby tournaments in Australia just like how hockey tournaments replace the senate here in Canada. :P
actually, getting the bits to australia *is* more expensive because the only way to get the bits there is via a couple underwater cables. When *all* your bits come through like, 4 cables, yea, it's more expensive.
I game with a buddy from Iceland. Yeah, I hear that all the time.
Not 20-30 dollars more expensive.
I don't think I have bought a single game for years now.... just rent occassionally or borrow friends stuff (or chip in with friends) I look at the price tag and just can't justify it. My brother bought GTA4 for $116!!!
What the hell happened to 'education revolution' and increasing the speed of broadband across Australia?
I mean, I know Rudd is an avid student of China, but to impose this kind of blanket ban = retarded.
How is it even supposed to stop kiddie pr0n from being distributed? What about online banking or other financial transactions? If the government is sitting in the middle, how is it secure?
Not to mention, it's not going to stop anything! I give it about 5 seconds before it is bypassed, mooting the millions of bucks spent on it.
Why is it not an opt-out system? Why is the Rudd government trying to take the place of parents? I don't have any anklebiters at the moment, but if/when I do I'll be the ones to control what they do/do not see, thanks so much. As it stands - I'm an adult. I can vote, buy porn from the newsagents - hell, I can make porn if I so choose - why the hell is it being censored in this way?
Rudd had a 70% approval rate when he came into power. 70%! Really, all that shows is the dissatisfaction with Howard and co, but fuck me - alcopop tax (which has hurt pensioners and other people on fixed incomes, not to mention drivin the 'young' it is supposed to stop binge drinking back onto pingers and mixing their own, which usually means more alcohol, not less).
Then we also got 'fuel watch' which was an abortion. Poorly thought out, poorly implemented. Almost exactly the same farce with 'grocery choice' as well. God, they couldn't even decide whether to post prices as 'per 100g' as opposed to 'per 1kg', which is hardly difficult to sort out.
At least the population is pretty galvanised against this. I've written to PM's office, to my local MP and Senator and I've got plenty of mates who have as well. I regularly log onto inthemix.com.au and other sites with users and there are already plenty of threads/people who have written to decry the idea.
Then we get the treasurer say on live TV that people who are worried about their banking accounts can always 'go on centrelink' (welfare for you US peoples out there). Thanks a lot, Swanny! You can suck a dick!
Sorry for the rant, but this is really something that has gotten under my skin. One policy after another that completely misses it's intended consequence by a country mile.
I think some 14-yearold bypassed it within 30 minutes of it going live.
That was the old opt in filter thing wasn't it.
i think you might be right on that.
i assumed you'd all be outside doing x-treme sports like rolling down hills in giant rubber balls, while punching drunken emu.
Although, shes a crazy christian too so shes probably for it.
Not so much anymore. That was just the case when the Aussie dollar was at record highs over the last few years. Right now, the prices are pretty much fair.
The average console game costs US$60 these days. That doesn't include sales tax.
In Australia, the average console game costs AU$100. That's with sales tax.
So, that means that the ex-tax price for console games in Australia is AU$90. That's US$60 (based on the current exchange rate).
It's pretty much spot-on.
The current rating system was devised when there was no need for a rating above that. The idea of a game with an R18+ rating was not even considered.
As games have become more sophisticated and mature, the need for an R18+ rating became evident. Unfortunately, the former Australian Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, had virtually no interest in taking any action on this issue.
When the ALP took power federally, the new AG (Robert McClelland) actually pursued this matter fairly aggressively. He promoted the idea of a R18+ rating for games at the first meeting of AGs. The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General pursued the issue, and prepared a discussion paper. Things were looking good.
Unfortunately, South Australia's AG (Michael Atkinson) has taken it on himself to wage a war against the planned changes. He has the sort of zeal, and the same arguments, that made Jack Thompson such a problem. He believes that his opposition to the changes to the classification system will save children from being exposed to dangerous content.
Change to the classification system requires unanimous agreement of all AGs, so nothing more can be done while Atkinson is the South Australian AG. Plenty of lobbying has been done on the part of the gaming industry, the other states, and the Federal Government, but he has declared it is a moral issue and he won't change his mind.
So, the changes to the ratings system are ready to go through, but Atkinson is vetoing them. The whole issue is a result of one man's "moral crusade".
This is a case of sheer stupidity by Senator Stephen Conroy. He was appointed Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy for some reason that nobody can fathom, and is totally out of his depth. He doesn't understand any of the technical hurdles with what he is planning. And it appears that he knows virtually nothing about the Internet at all.
The saddest thing is that the one person in Federal Parliament who actually understands IT (Senator Kate Lundy) has been sidelined from the whole debate because her husband is an ICT lobbyist.
DBCDE also deserves their share of the blame. They have been pushing the censorship agenda for years (ever since they were called DCITA). I'm sure they are pushing Conroy along.
Another factor is that Steve Fielding, the Senator from Family First, currently holds the balance of power in the Senate. He has made it clear that his support for Labor's legislative agenda is dependent on them taking action on Internet censorship. If they annoy him, then they will face a hostile Senate, and governance will stall altogether.
The upside is this: if the filters ever go live, the Government will be instantly humiliated. There are several simple ways to bypass server-side filtering, and there will undoubtedly be some kid on TV within a few hours of the filter going live demonstrating how he bypassed it by installing Tor.
ISPs are also dead-set against the plan, so they will surely help ensure that the implementation is as shambolic and disruptive as possible. The policy will be DoA, and such an embarrassment that nobody will try it again.
We have to have something to do in the middle of the day. It gets fucking hot here.
average day is something like this
4:30-5:30 get up and milk the cows
5:30-6:00 realise your just drunk from the night before and you don't live on a farm
6:00-9:30 sleep more
9:30-11:30 national Xtreme sports time. Choices are: surfing, skating and that ball thing
11:30-2:00 hide inside and drink, play xbox, burn fossis fuels (we have all the coal, and when that runs out all the uranium)
2:00- 8:00 Look for native fauna to punch. Not Kangaroos.
Family First scare me. Alot.
Then everyone turns out to knock the drop bears of the Sydney harbour bridge.
After which, everyone then beats their matresses and other bedding to make sure the funnel webs, red backs, golden orbs and other assorted spiders are indimidated.
Back to reality though - Micheal Atkinson is an idiot. It's also retarded that all the state attorney generals, as well as the 91% percent of gamers surveyed can be held accountable by one man's idiocy. It's offensive in the extreme that he can hold hostage so many thousands of people because he is offended by the gina and violence in video games.
Also - it sucks the Steve Fielding is anywhere near a position of power. Rudd having to kowtow to him is ridiculous, and it looks like he is caught between a rock and a hard place. However, he should take the hit on this one and stop it from passing. Sure, Fielding will extract something else inane, but the balance of power is held by Fielding and Xenophon. Rudd isn't totally held hostage, he can amend policy to be palatable to other parties in the senate to get things passed - though obviously not getting all his own way.
Which, I guess is what the senate is ultimately for.
The balance of power is held by the Greens, Fielding and Xenophon.
In other words, for the ALP to get anything passed, they need the support of all of them. Get one of them off-side, and we're headed for a double dissolution.
The only other option would be to get the Liberals to vote for the ALP legislation, but that's not really likely at the moment for anything other than routine legislation or bills that the Libs don't dare to oppose.
We already had that. Rudd campaigned on the same CHANGE platform as various others are doing.
He is the Golden boy of the ALP (left side of politics, if we can claim to have a left side of politics anymore) and he defeated the incumbant Conservitative government.
At least Xenophon is'nt as crazy as the greens and Fielding. I'm in QLD so i don't hear to much of him, but he seems like a true independant looking our for the people that elected him. (am I living in dream land?)
He may have campaigned for Change, but he hasn't done a single bloody thing. I'm beginning to suspect he is actually not a person but rather a human suit stuffed full of foam.
You know, if you Americans hadn't distracted me with your fascinating historic election foolishness, I think I would have paid a lot more attention to exactly screwed up our government is getting.
He started off as a purely anti-gambling politician. He wants to ban poker machines and shut down most other gambling enterprises in Australia. He also wants the Government to block internet access to overseas gambling sites.
His other political views are a bit of a mystery. He does love publicity stunts, though.
With the ALP needing the support of Xenophon, Fielding and the Greens to get legislation passed, it's a miracle they have achieved anything at all.
Anyone who buys used games from EB's is a crazy person.
If you trade your games in without there being some sort of super-special trade-in deal, you're even loonier. Just sell them on eBay if you don't want them anymore.
Assuming this does get implemented(because labor are so so good at following things through), it's just a matter of time before youtube video's of people giving demonstrations of how to bypass the filtering come out.
At that point, the government will either have to admit defeat(spending $texas on a scheme that 14 year old boys can get around) or block youtube. If they choose the latter, it will be seen as blocking political dissent, and we will have rioting in the streets(come on, we've rioted for less).
But yeah, I'll say this right now. Australian Compulsory filtering - Not gonna happen.