ADVOCACY, POLICY & NEWS
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2K Games snubs Australians with online price rise, encourages piracy
For a few weeks, 2K Games’ new title, Borderlands, was available to Australians at the same price on Steam that it was available in the UK and US. The game has been pulled from the Australian Steam site for the last week. Kotaku is now reporting that the game will…
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Michael Atkinson replies to R18+ enquiries
A new six page form-letter from the South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, on the topic of the lack of an R18+ rating for games has begun circulating. An EFA member has sent us the response he received; it seems almost identical to the ones available at both Kotaku and Reddit.…
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Weekend discussion at Ausgamers: Should the Classification Board attempt to establish precedent?
Steve Farrelly over at Ausgamers attempts to unravel the apparent inconsistency in two recent decisions of the Classification Board in rating computer games: refusing classification to Left 4 Dead 2, but granting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 an MA15+ rating, where in most other jurisdictions it was rated as…
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Email your A-G and request the release of the discussion paper (one click tool from Gamers4Croydon)
New political party, Gamers 4 Croydon, have created a one-click tool to email your Attorney-General and request the release of the R18+ Discussion Paper. The next meeting of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General is apparently Thursday and Friday this week; if you care about an R18+ rating, send an email…
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ACTA copyright negotiations underway: still secret, still worrying
The new round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations has started in Seoul. This round sees the introduction of the long-anticipated internet enforcement measures, which the US has drafted in secret. Michael Geist reports that the draft text is modeled on the US – South Korea free trade agreement, and…
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Disappointing L4D2 demo released; write to the Minister!
The Australian version of the Left 4 Dead 2 demo has been released, and the highly cut version is a bitter disappointment for many Australian gamers. First impressions from Australian gamers indicates that the highly-censored version results in a vastly inferior atmosphere to the original, uncut version. The lack of…