Can we please deport the Australian Government?

I'm afraid all you've done is taken a step up from how bad it was.
Without an R18+ rating it was very easy for your ratings board to simply ban a game.
Now you're in the same boat as a lot of others (like Germany, where I live) that just has ridiculously strict censoring.
Welcome to the better place, it still sucks quite a bit.

Mara.

I'm sure all the console editions are censored, while the PC version isn't.

Fuck em, they wont stop me, if i want to see something that's banned i will.

Thought this was about our current government, so I was surprised to see this be a rant about the inadequacy of our R18+ rating. I agree though, the current rating system just means that some titles that would have been classified as MA15+ would now be classified as R18+; essentially only a few titles that were banned before now get R18+ ratings (Mortal Kombat). In other words, a near useless rating. Might as well add in an X rating for games and it would barely make a difference.

No, just specifically all of them.

Censorship is, unfortunately, doing significantly better than every other area of Australian governing atm.

To change politics we have to change ourselves first, that said, you can do nothing, and if you want to leave, choose very carefully 'cause most countries are making shit politics (uganda, uk), here (ecuador) politics are crap like anyother 3rd world country so politics are politics everywhere.

Lol .. leaving a country because of censored video games.

I am considering opening a refugee camp for deprived Australian gamers.

Deport them to Papua New Guinea

The one thing we have in NZ and you don't in Aussie. Sympathies sent to you, comrade.

Maybe you should send them to Syria.

If I lived there, I would just continue to legally buy my games, then torrent the uncensored version and overwrite the files with the censored insall on my PC.

"Clearly, our Government still wants to treat adults like children."

Isn't that the modus operandi of any and every government?

A lot of stuff about Australia seems awesome, but I wouldn't want to live in a place where porn with small-breasted women is automatically considered child porn.

you are leaving your home country due to computer games censorship...

GROW UP

for uncut

For those thinking I'd like the leave the country over censored games; I'm studying as a game designer, and Australia's indie market (or games market in general) is pretty terrible, and has been since the first few start-ups. The Government barely supports anything here, and if the stories I've heard are true, certain people in the Government have an active distaste towards gaming due to how pushy previous developers were in demanding for certain things.

I doubt building games here in Australia would lend me as much credibility or support as if I developed them over in America or Canada.

So make a game where the goal is slaughtering kangaroos and dingos, boil those cute little kiwi birds. Maybe behead some pygmies, you know, fun stuff. Piss people off, get it in the news, stir the pot.

Problem solved.

Does it really make that big a difference?

...and don't you pay more for your games (than any other country) on top of all this? :p

The obvious problem I have with Stick of Truth being censored here in Aus is that it truly shows that the interactive aspect is the only thing that's getting it stricter ratings. This is as close as a game has ever come to its television show/movie/video based counterpart. When has an episode of South Park ever gotten an R18+ rating? The uncensored DVDs here all have MA15+ ratings, and from playing a good chunk of the uncensored version of the game today, it really is no more violent, sexual or crude than the show has ever been.

I do agree with OP's sentiment though - our government treats us like children. I wouldn't leave the country because of it, but if you're going to restrict the sale of a product to people over the age of 18, which makes them adults, (over here 18 is the legal drinking age and the age at which you are tried in court as an adult) treat them like adults! I understand that they are trying to make it more difficult for children to access these products but there is absolutely no reason why an adult shouldn't be allowed to experience the uncensored version of ANY game, no matter what the content. Make a game about fisting hookers, doesn't matter, adults should still be able to enjoy ("enjoy?") it seeing as it's legal here at the age of 18 to actually go fist a hooker provided you are in a licensed sexy time establishment and the hooker kindly agrees to let you insert your fist into her anus.

tl;dr here in aus at age 18 we can drink, smoke, and fist hookers all we want but we get denied games because of people being butthurt (hehe puns) over cartoon anal probes

Well, Gaben in his AMA on reddit didn't even care to answer the question about the age verfication, so I guess you and we Germans will be in the same boat for a long, long time and with the new restrictions on cross region trading we are pretty fucked.

well Oderus cut the PM head off at least TWICE and it just keeps growing back, and every time the ears get bigger. the second time everyone has a big hub-bub about it, I mean come on it keeps growing back its like the Aussie government is just as invasive as the U.S