june gloom on 25/3/2010 at 16:00

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She also flooded the Aperature Science Enrichment Center with a deadly nerve toxin. That's too evil for the Swiss.

Bluegrime on 25/3/2010 at 18:05

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So does that technically mean Quake would still be okay, provided you took out the boss fights? AFAIK aside from Cathon and Shubby, there isn't any point where you "have" to kill anything. So technically speaking violence isn't the means to success, it just makes it easier.

Enchantermon on 25/3/2010 at 18:57

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I don't know about Deus Ex or Deadly Shadows (having not yet finished either), but in Thief you have to kill the Trickster (though indirectly) and in Thief 2 you kill Karras (again, indirectly). Plus, in Thief, 2, you are forced to KO Cavador, which, though not fatal, is still violent.

Ostriig on 25/3/2010 at 19:40

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There's really not much point in discussing whether games where you could progress in a non-lethal manner would qualify. You can rest assured they would - should such a moronic initiative be made law and enforced, any sort of action-like game where "hurting" human characters is a viable and visible path would be banned. That's not a distinction the people applying it would make, not that if they did it would make this entire attempt any less retarded.

Unless someone wants to dig up the Australian thread, I'm just gonna go ahead and post yet another related update here: it (http://kotaku.com/5501880/new-south-australian-attorney-general-supports-adult-game-ratings) appears that Atkinson's replacement, John Rau, may well be in support of introducing an R18+ category.

demagogue on 25/3/2010 at 19:59

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The point is that it's a stupid and arbitrary line. (Not to step on your or anybody else's comments playing with the "rules" ... sort of an interesting game of its own, I'd agree.)

GTA3 gave you "points" for batting a hooker (although it still did nothing to "advance" you in the game) and then later versions stopped doing points (didn't they? I forget now), but is there really any difference? Just asking the question gets you into splitting irrelevant hairs like this, which is a hint that they whole debate is sort of silly and arbitrary. And it's not the 1950s, we're all media savvy just by growing up around it... I never have been entirely convinced that gaming is such a unique media that it deserves special rules.

And if I remember my legal history properly (for US anyway), the reason violence gets more protection in movies & tv (as opposed to graphic sex) is that violence is an intrinsically "public" issue. The fact is that wars, crime, and violence are part of modern life that affect all of us, and humans should know about it and be able to deal with it in all the contexts in which it comes up ... And I think it's fair to say that gaming should be part of that. GTA did venture into juvenile & tasteless territory with it, which is exactly what you can say about it. Some other games are getting smarter about showing the consequences of violence. Some things like hardcore military sims I think are very helpful to understanding how violence works in the real world. All these shades of gray are part of the discussion, and it seems like a stupid blunt hammer to think you're solving something by wholesale quashing the whole damn category, and then all the kids torrent it anyway. /rant. [I probably don't even need to rant, anyway, since I think most people here hover around the same sort of thinking; I just started typing and it came out...]

Edit: Ninja'd. More news from the reasonable world, I see. I still sometimes hold out hope that the reasonable still has a chance.