Australia puts sales of WoW, other MMOs on ice
by Randy Nelson 
{ Feb 5th 2009 at 2:28AM }
Blizzard made a brief comment on its own forums, stating that the company "will always respect the laws of the countries in which we operate." Of course, Blizzard and other MMO makers may be able to remedy the situation by submitting their games for classification, something they generally haven't done in the past. As long as the games receive a MA15+ rating or lower (suitable for ages 15 years and up), they're good to peacefully reclaim their retail space.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Follisimo @ Feb 5th 2009 2:51AM
What's Australia?
Tateru Nino @ Feb 5th 2009 4:00AM
It is a continent in the Southern hemisphere, the sixth largest country, and a member of the British Commonwealth. Last year it ranked as the world's most prosperous country according to the Legatum Prosperity Index.
joeymoto- OMFGWTFBBQ?!?!?!?! @ Feb 5th 2009 4:36AM
I hope that was a sarcastic question... otherwise I truly feel worried for you.
B @ Feb 5th 2009 4:43AM
and their government handles entertainment mediums in general very poorly, almost as bad as Germany. Therefor; they are irrelevant and shouldn't be acknowledged.
B @ Feb 5th 2009 4:56AM
(I hope my sarcasm came through on my post)
Phil @ Feb 5th 2009 6:23AM
You know, its the country that isn't in a recession.
Foetoid @ Feb 5th 2009 7:13AM
'Whats Australia'? My god.
Lets have a rant. Australia has a far better public heath system than the US and most other countries. Our welfare system gives out thousands of dollars for free (my missus gets a $600 yearly tax-free bonus for 1 child, while the other child got a $4500 bonus when he was born). She is also on about AUS$850 a fortnight just for having 2 kids. Then we've got our amazing climate and weather, picturesque all year round. We've got the same technologies and infrastructers the US has, with 1/10th the homeless rate and 1/1000th the racism (tho with Obama in the White House, you've all done very well for yourselves). Its a beautiful multicultural society, almost like a Utopia. To help stave off the recession, our Prime Minister coughed up $1000 per child to parents on welfare benefits (we got $2000 for free 2 weeks before christmas) and to elderly (non-taxable income) and he's about to do the same again in March, tho slightly modified for other welfare recipients and no elderly. It's the land of free money, gorgeous women, beautiful weather and i can't think of anywhere else in the world i would rather live.
Premature ejaculation man @ Feb 5th 2009 8:33AM
I second the part about the women. Without Australia, how would I wouldn't be the amazing superhero I am today.
pearl @ Feb 6th 2009 10:03AM
F*@CK Foetoid.
Does every post that includes Australia truly have to spill into a massive rant, the guy was just having a joke and it failed you don't need to be so freakin defensive.
jouten @ Feb 5th 2009 2:53AM
This looks like where the US of A is heading too...
Follisimo, Australia is that country where everything is backwards. The toilet even flushes in the opposite direction.
notworksafe @ Feb 5th 2009 2:59AM
Except not at all where the US of A is heading. The government doesn't regulate game sales in the slightest, and every attempt for them to do so gets shot down immediately.
B @ Feb 5th 2009 5:05AM
You're carded for buying certain games (I can't remember what ratings). That's regulation if you ask me.
Kat @ Feb 5th 2009 5:20AM
The ESRB exists, but it's not governmental. Stores typically have policies in accordance with ESRB guidelines, but they are not required to do so. There's no governmental oversight. It's a much better system, in my opinion - informative, but not forceful.
John @ Feb 5th 2009 3:00AM
Can the law punish Blizzard for selling the game to Australian citizens online? I imagine this would only affect Brick and Mortar retailers.
Tateru Nino @ Feb 5th 2009 3:18AM
Publishers sell to distributors. Distributors sell to retailers. Retailers sell to the public. At least one of those chains of sales falls under the Australian jurisdiction, and perhaps more than one - depending on who the publishers, retailers and distributors are in any given supply chain.
Tateru Nino @ Feb 5th 2009 4:04AM
Oh, you said online? No. As I noted a little further down, overseas sales don't seem to be subject to the classification act.
GIVEMEREPLAY @ Feb 5th 2009 3:33AM
Australia has everything from animal control to gun rights to censorship ass backwards. I'm genuinely scared for people who live there. How many government infringements on your rights do you need to see before you throw the bastards out? Don't let stodgy 70 year old politicians who don't know how to use a mouse decide your personal life and your digital economy for you.
t_m @ Feb 5th 2009 7:48AM
I guess it depends if you WANT the thing that is controlled.
Want MMOs and have a legitimate reason to do so, then the legislation is indeed ass backwards.
Want guns and then.... oh wait, no one really wants guns, so gun control isn't a problem.
Robert Maynard @ Feb 5th 2009 10:49AM
Hey, we get by. It's not exactly fascism.
The only thing truly scary (and truly oppressive, for that matter) thing to come out of our government lately are the plans for an internet censorship filter, imposed at the ISP level. But the fact is that Australians are very easy to rile up - it's already a terribly unpopular idea, and if it were imposed all it would take to reverse would be the opposition party to campaign on a promise to get rid of it, and polling would either scare the ruling party into getting rid of it to prevent electoral catastrophe, or the other party would win. Voting is compulsory, which stagnates and homogenises the political process, and is absolutely brutal to anyone who tries to enact controversial policy. It's often a pretty shitty system, but like I said, we get by. :P
GIVEMEREPLAY @ Feb 5th 2009 1:32PM
I WANT guns because guns let me remove an oppressive government and shoot the meth head who had a knife breaking into my house. I also don't want my government to tell me what I can read or see.
HippoHero @ Feb 5th 2009 7:01PM
@GIVEMEREPLAY
I don't want guns because places with more guns have more opportunity gun crimes.
A gun is not a defensive weapon, it is an offensive one. He who fires the first shot wins.
I have also never felt the need to overthrow my government, have you? I don't think me and my gun would be able to stand up to the military either.
GIVEMEREPLAY @ Feb 5th 2009 7:16PM
That's just the kind of ignorance I'd expect from someone propagandized with anti-gun information. Places with more guns have more gun crime? Perhaps, but places with less guns have more knife crime. The difference is that in a place with no guns the knife wielders win, but in a place with guns everyone is on a fairly equal level. What do you have against law abiding citizens owning guns for their own defense? One man (or woman) armed on a lonely street can protect themselves and everyone else around them from being beaten, mugged, robbed, raped, etc. Guns are tools, and like all tools can be abused, but the more guns that exist in the hands of law abiding persons, the safer the place is. Criminals think twice before mugging/robbing a person/house which is probably filled with armed persons. Predators rely on the vulnerability of their prey to survive. The better armed the prey, the fewer the predators.
I'm not sure how you figure that a gun is an offensive weapon rather than a defensive one. I can't even conceive of a weapon that could be purely defensive in your mind. Even pepper spray would have to be considered offensive, because "He who fires the first spray wins". That isn't just a stance against the right of defense, its pro-criminal. Criminals have no better friends than those who seek to disarm those who abide by the laws. Do you think criminals care whether guns or knives are banned? Do you intend to search every home, every garden and seal every border opening? Guns and knives will always be part of society, so the best move is to give law abiders the same power as criminals have, so that they are on equal footing.
Lastly, I haven't wanted to overthrow my government lately, but there may come a time when it becomes necessary. I don't expect many persons outside of the USA to grasp this concept, but our entire history is based on the belief that governments sometimes become abusive of the rights of its citizenry, and must be removed by force. If imperialism, fascism and socialism aren't enough evidence that governments occasionally need to be violently removed, I don't know what is. As to the ability to stand up to the military, that's the easy part. The military is funded with tax dollars, and if governmental oppression ever got so bad that the people (a significant portion of them) saw fit to rebel, the government's source of funding and recruitment would dry up. Guerrilla tactics have proven effective again and again in this and the last century. The Iraqi insurgents have been a thorn in the side of the U.S. military since 2003, despite facing the full force of that military, which has the full support of 300 million American's tax dollars, and despite having far fewer fighters.
HippoHero @ Feb 5th 2009 7:39PM
“places with less guns have more knife crime.”
That might be true. I live in a place that has gun regulations and I have never read/heard of a gun crime happening in the city.
“One man (or woman) armed on a lonely street can protect themselves and everyone else around them from being beaten, mugged, robbed, raped, etc”
Except if that criminal has a gun of their own.
“. Predators rely on the vulnerability of their prey to survive. The better armed the prey, the fewer the predators.”
Lower violent crime rates in areas with fewer guns would seem to contradict that.
@ your second paragraph.
Restricting guns will lower opportunity gun crimes. When someone goes to rob a store in Canada, they (generally) do it with knives and improvised weapons. I have never heard of any store in my area being robbed at gunpoint. I've lived here 10 years and have received the newspaper most every day. When people have greater access to guns they tend to use them.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44234000/gif/_44234517_gun_crime_4161.gif
Strange, isn’t it? I thought South Africa and Russia had loads of guns? Shouldn't they be the most safe? I wonder how those idiot Canucks and Aussies are able to defend themselves at all with all their gun-regulations?
And I don’t think you and your revolutionaries would last ten seconds against the military. Guerillas may be a thorny bunch, but they’ll never contend with the strength of the military.
GIVEMEREPLAY @ Feb 5th 2009 7:56PM
"That might be true. I live in a place that has gun regulations and I have never read/heard of a gun crime happening in the city."
I bet you've got plenty of muggings and stabbings. Is it much better to get stabbed than shot?
"Except if that criminal has a gun of their own. "
The criminal can and probably will have a gun regardless of your regulations. If you haven't figured it out yet, criminals don't follow the law.
"Lower violent crime rates in areas with fewer guns would seem to contradict that."
I argued about this with some guys on the rockpapershotgun board. London has TONS of stabbings and violent crime, but very little gun crime. Here were my findings
"According to the FBI, in 2005 the U.S. had 469.2 crimes per 100,000 people.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html
According to the Home Office, in the september to september (2004/2005) timeframe covered in the report, there were 2,420,000 violent crimes in the UK. There were 60.6 million people in the UK in 2006. That translates to about 3992.8 violent crimes in the UK per 100,000 people.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/uk.html
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimeew0506.html
You could argue that the UK survey reports lesser crimes (like verbal threats) as violent crimes, but that doesn’t account for the colossal figure. If someone can present better numbers, I’m all ears.
That means that the U.K. had 850% more violent crime in the 2004/2005 time period than the U.S. had in 2005. The 2004/2005 time period is not two years, but rather a September to September study, so it isn’t appropriate to cut that number in half. Even if we did, it’s a colossal figure, and much greater than the U.S. numbers. "
"Restricting guns will lower opportunity gun crimes. When someone goes to rob a store in Canada, they (generally) do it with knives and improvised weapons. I have never heard of any store in my area being robbed at gunpoint. I've lived here 10 years and have received the newspaper most every day. When people have greater access to guns they tend to use them."
Strange, since Canada has relatively lax gun laws. It is very easy to procure a long gun in Canada, it just has to be registered. I live 10 minutes from Windsor and I am acquainted with both Canadian and American gun laws. It seems that your correlation doesn't seem to be the causation.
"Strange, isn’t it? I thought South Africa and Russia had loads of guns? Shouldn't they be the most safe? I wonder how those idiot Canucks and Aussies are able to defend themselves at all with all their gun-regulations?"
Russia and South Africa also have colossal amounts of extreme poverty, and are both countries which are not as well industrialized or modernized as European countries, Canada or America. You'll find a much greater correlation between poverty and crime than you will between gun rights and crime. Switzerland has perhaps more assault rifles per person than any other nation in the world, and yet has extremely low gun crime (save for suicide, which again reinforces my belief that culture/society/locational factors have more to do with violence than guns do).
"And I don’t think you and your revolutionaries would last ten seconds against the military. Guerillas may be a thorny bunch, but they’ll never contend with the strength of the military."
Tell that to Lenin, the Iranians who overthrew the Shah, the Algerians, Castro, the French revolutionaries, the American revolutionaries, etc... Don't stick your head in the sand just because the facts don't jibe with your ideology.
HippoHero @ Feb 5th 2009 8:12PM
“Is it much better to get stabbed than shot?”
Yes o_0
“The criminal can and probably will have a gun regardless of your regulations. If you haven't figured it out yet, criminals don't follow the law.”
If you haven’t already figured it out, there is a suspicious correlation between the number of guns a country has per capita and the number of crimes committed with them.
“According to the FBI, in 2005 the U.S. had 469.2 crimes per 100,000 people.”
You don’t need a gun to commit a crime. Those stats are practically useless. Look at the murder rate; it’s higher in countries with more guns. People will always commit crimes no matter what weapons are available, but owning a gun makes murder that much easier, hence a higher murder rate.
“Strange, since Canada has relatively lax gun laws.”
The laws don’t matter, it’s the number of guns that does. Canada has fewer guns:
http://www.cfc-cafc.gc.ca/pol-leg/res-eval/images/fig1_cr.gif
That’s a bad graph and only takes into account “households”, but I think you get the message.
“Russia and South Africa also have colossal amounts of extreme poverty”
Still doesn’t explain why the US murder rate is at number 5.
“Tell that to Lenin…etc”
They all did it against divided and weakened authorities and against similar technology. For sake of simplicity, I’ll concentrate on Lenin. He took power from a weak provisional government after the tsar abdicated. It is also notable that it was against early 20th century technology and not against the world’s most advanced/largest military. His guys were also similarily equipped as the other guys.
Get your head out of the sand. America’s military has been improving these past 100 years; you wouldn’t last a second against a modern tank/carrier/figher jet/whatever.
Places with fewer guns are safer.
GIVEMEREPLAY @ Feb 5th 2009 8:30PM
"If you haven’t already figured it out, there is a suspicious correlation between the number of guns a country has per capita and the number of crimes committed with them."
Except for when it doesn't, like Switzerland. Or Canada.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2834893820070828
Canada has 30 guns per 100 people, but has a much lower rate of violent crime than England, which has a minuscule amount of firearms. Your correlation doesn't fit the data, drop it already.
"You don’t need a gun to commit a crime. Those stats are practically useless. Look at the murder rate; it’s higher in countries with more guns. People will always commit crimes no matter what weapons are available, but owning a gun makes murder that much easier, hence a higher murder rate."
I thought your argument was that more guns = more crime...
"“Russia and South Africa also have colossal amounts of extreme poverty”
Still doesn’t explain why the US murder rate is at number 5."
Sure does. Most gun crime occurs in impoverished areas of big cities. America happens to have a lot of big, poor post industrial cities. Like my fair Detroit, or Chicago, or Flint, or the slums of LA, or New York, etc. The suburbs and the country have very little gun crime.
"They all did it against divided and weakened authorities and against similar technology. For sake of simplicity, I’ll concentrate on Lenin. He took power from a weak provisional government after the tsar abdicated. It is also notable that it was against early 20th century technology and not against the world’s most advanced/largest military. His guys were also similarily equipped as the other guys."
Did you even read what I said? That division is a key element. If there was a schism in the U.S or any country which results in a civil war, the government will be strangled by a lack of tax dollars and manpower, and will thus be "divided". Secondly, as I said a tiny amount of insurgents has been bleeding the U.S. for a half decade in Iraq using nothing but small arms and bombs. Imagine what 1/10th of the U.S. populace could do against an oppressive government.
"Places with fewer guns are safer."
Tell that to a woman who gets raped because she is physically overpowered by an assailant, when a gun could have made the difference. Tell me that when you get held up at knifepoint and have no recourse to defend yourself. Tell me that when your house gets robbed and you are terrorized in your own abode because you have let the criminals get the upper hand.
"Get your head out of the sand. America’s military has been improving these past 100 years; you wouldn’t last a second against a modern tank/carrier/figher jet/whatever."
And you know nothing of tactics. Jets and tanks aren't very useful in fighting guerrillas, which do not pose big easy targets like opposing militaries do, hence why the U.S. has such a hard time squashing insurgent movements. Might I raise Vietnam? The full power of the U.S., tanks, jets, bombs and all couldn't stop some damn communist guerrillas with their tunnels and small arms.
I ask you to genuinely consider what I've said. Consider what recourse you would have if your home was broken into and your family was threatened. Consider where you would turn if your government began to instate laws which you feel violate your basic human rights, and ceases to listen to the people. People who lived under the Soviet Union know this situation well. Note that the Yugoslavians were the only people who were able to resist the terrorizing power of Stalin and the Soviet Union, and only because his populace was well armed, and the people were well trained guerrilla fighters. Guns can certainly be used to bad ends, but so can knives, and rocks, and cars. They are a fact of life, and they can never be completely (or even mostly) banned from a society, it simply strengthens criminals in their relation to their victims. Allow people to defend themselves: they have a right to do so.
I've said my piece. I'm done.
HippoHero @ Feb 5th 2009 8:50PM
“Canada has 30 guns per 100 people, but has a much lower rate of violent crime than England, which has a minuscule amount of firearms. Your correlation doesn't fit the data, drop it already.”
*facepalm*
Gun crime =/= violent crime.
“I thought your argument was that more guns = more crime...”
more guns = more GUN crime
“Sure does.”
If the US did not have so many guns, it would probably be much lower.
“Imagine what 1/10th of the U.S. populace could do against an oppressive government.”
Nothing. There is nowhere to hide in the US, most all roads are paved, and TANKS. Most of what the insurgents do in Iraq is done against civilians, not the military. When they do hit military targets, they usually do it with IED’s, which only work on unpaved roads.
The US were also fighting the Vietcong in a dense jungle, not in a highly urbanised country like the US.
1/10th of the population all armed with guns could not go against the military which has armoured vehicles, air, and sea support.
“Tell that to a woman who gets raped because she is physically overpowered by an assailant, when a gun could have made the difference. Tell me that when you get held up at knifepoint and have no recourse to defend yourself. Tell me that when your house gets robbed and you are terrorized in your own abode because you have let the criminals get the upper hand.”
That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Tell that to the any police officer who died at the hands of a gunman. They were all armed and trained in the usage of their weapons, why weren’t they safe? The fact is that if the criminal has a gun you owning one won’t make any difference.
Consider this: A society with fewer guns has fewer gun crimes. Most households do not have a gun. Owning a weapon should not be a prerequisite for your own safety and having more guns drives up the murder rate.
“Guns can certainly be used to bad ends, but so can knives, and rocks, and cars”
You can run from a person with a knife or a rock (at least more so than a gunman) and cars generally aren’t used aggressively.
“it simply strengthens criminals in their relation to their victims.”
See 2 points up.
I do apologize for anyone who had to scroll all this, but:
http://xkcd.com/386/
Robert Maynard @ Feb 5th 2009 9:43PM
There are plenty of countries waiting to be cited in which a) there is more crime, and more guns, b) there is less crime, and more guns, c) there is more crime, and less guns, and d) there is less crime, and less guns. Simply put there is no reliable correlation between simple ownership and use in violent crime. There are other factors.
As to the power of citizens to remove or intimidate entities they do not like through violent force - it works. It's called terrorism. Citizens bomb abortion clinics because they're just such good Christians, killing doctors and initimidating their practice. Animal rights activists bomb testing facilities and kidnap animals, crippling basic research efforts, and Iraqi insurgents work tirelessly to kill American soldiers occupying the country. 1/10th of the US population (some 30 million people) could absolutely do serious damage to the infrastructure of the United States as a citizen insurgency, through the use of IED's and guerilla tactics. And think of all the thousands of tonnes of nuclear material, if not actual nukes, lying around, with which to bargain. It's a bit more of a surveillance culture there, so it'd be a bit harder to get away with, but GIVEMEREPLAY is pretty much right that it is within the power of the people to destroy its own government in the US, and in Australia we would not be able to muster that kind of uprising anywhere near as easily. Our geography doesn't help much either.
However, as I just said, in the political terminology of this day and age, such actions would be correctly identified as terrorism, and combating it would be so exhausting that there wouldn't be much of a country left afterwards for the revolutionaries to beat their chests over.
Alien Lord @ Feb 5th 2009 3:54AM
I'd rather they just ban MMOs outright, they're damn near pure evil.
Tateru Nino @ Feb 5th 2009 3:54AM
The good news is that digital downloads from overseas *appear* to completely bypass the ratings requirements: http://www.massively.com/2009/02/04/gaming-the-ratings-game/
t_m @ Feb 5th 2009 7:57AM
It seems to me that given the "experience may change online" get out clause, publishers wanting to sell cert 18 games in Australia (not just MMOs) should just put a basic 15 game on the DVD, and then have a downloadable patch that adds everything else back in.
UltimateQ @ Feb 5th 2009 4:19AM
Could be good news for vanguard and eve if this stretches out!
deanb @ Feb 5th 2009 5:57AM
How do you get a classification on WoW? Surely it must take ages to make sure there's no dodgy material. Unless their system is like PEGI where the dev's rate it for you. Damn Bryon Report forcing BBFC on us gamer's...grrr.
Tateru Nino @ Feb 5th 2009 6:12AM
That's a great question, actually. I'll pass it to the Classification Board and see what they say.
Haggard @ Feb 5th 2009 3:18PM
"Online interactions not rated by the ESRB" or "are not the responsibility of the developer and publisher"
Those phrases, found it pretty much every multiplayer game, mean that the ESRB only rate the game itself, e.g. quest dialogue, levels of gore
deanb @ Feb 5th 2009 3:37PM
ESRB is US classificiation board.
So I would guess they have nothing to do wiht how Australia classify thier game's.
Same With BBFC and PEGI who cover UK/EU.
OFLC do AU, and there doesnt seem to be any online exemption, or any info on how it's carried out.
As mentioned the PEGI system(used in EU) is ultimately a questionaire for the Dev's to rate it themselve's, except in UK where any game of 15 or above is re-rated by the BBFC, where thier method is to play the game. As BBFC n OLFC seem to be simailr organisations (Film classification's not games) I'd assume their practrice's may be similar.
Cutty @ Feb 5th 2009 6:20AM
These MMO developers never even submitted their titles to be rated so surely it's their fault this time?
Tateru Nino @ Feb 5th 2009 7:32AM
Not if they didn't make any sales within Australia's jurisdiction. The Act only covers sales, demonstrations or storage of games that are (a) unrated or (b) refused classification. So basically it devolves down onto the seller to not sell unrated materials. There's no requirement for the publisher to get a game rated, but if they don't or can't then nobody's allowed to sell it.
t_m @ Feb 5th 2009 7:41AM
So. Fact 1. Australia is the only country in the world without MMOs.
Fact 2. Australia is about the only country in the world not in recession.
I think we've discovered the culprit, watson...
phr3qu3ncy441 @ Feb 5th 2009 8:20AM
so is australia really strict on rating games? because as far as i see it, wow should easily clear the ratings requirement.
Tateru Nino @ Feb 5th 2009 8:56AM
I would imagine it should manage a PG or M rating fairly easily. The only problem is that it doesn't have one at all at present.
Jagzi11a @ Feb 5th 2009 9:33AM
Whats up with the right side of that picture, his shoulder is doubled or something.
Tateru Nino @ Feb 6th 2009 10:22PM
Here is the current word: http://www.massively.com/2009/02/06/australia-takes-no-action-on-unrated-computer-games/