Tom Valcanis
Life-long politics tragic, digital marketer and writer. Articles in the Age/SMH, the Big Issue, the Spectator, and editor of alt-lifestyle mag Hysteria from 2014–2020.
The Federal Government should appoint more Karens.
No seriously, they should.
Let’s have a Karen for banning apps when a face-to-face interaction could do the same in half the time.
We’d hear announcement after announcement about the Anti-App Karen crawling into every nook and cranny of our lives, sniffing out annoying app transactions like a pig finding truffles. Though the Anti-App Karen would lose every lawsuit she ever filed, the perception of her threat would chill would-be “innovators” to force their idle, doomscrolling workers to *gasp!* ask people if they want extra fries with that.
We can’t stop there. Let’s have a Karen for deciding who stands where on escalators, if failing to wave at fellow drivers for letting you pass should mean jail, and if learnings is a word (it isn’t.)
The public would think it was gross overreach; nanny state micromanagement gone mad. It would inspire a mass uprising against unelected, broad-spectrum fun and commonsense killer commissioners. Well, everywhere but Victoria.
Yet, we have the eSafety Commissioner, non-lovingly referred to as the eKaren by anyone with half a brain, intruding into the most mundane of mundanities as if she was on a tireless crusade like Alexander into Persia and through to India. We’re not stopping, Hephaestion, until every PC and phone is SAFE!
Safe from what, exactly, we’ll never quite know.
Surely consenting adults should be able to access all features of a live service video game if they choose?
The eKaren’s latest escapade has seen two major casinos bringing in billions of dollars suddenly shut down by its parent companies. You didn’t hear this on the news because the casinos and/or houses of ill-repute reside in Los Santos, Valentine, and Saint Denis, locations only accessible if you purchase and play Grand Theft Auto: Online or Red Dead Redemption 2.
In the latest power grab guised under “won’t somebody think of the children”, parent company Rockstar Games pulled the ability for Australian players to access casinos or gambling features in the titles, despite being available for over seven years.
For those not familiar with either game, you play as either a present day (GTA:O) or Old West outlaw (RDR2) that’s given an entire open world to steal, maim, murder, destroy, and/or deceive for personal profit.
Not real dollars, obviously, but in-game currency. Though you can buy the currency using real world dollars, you can’t ‘cash it out’. It’s how Rockstar makes massive billion-dollar revenues on 10-year-old titles. The currency isn’t exclusive to gambling: you can buy in-game items such as vehicles, property, and weapons to gain an edge over opponents. It’s a much-maligned feature called ‘pay-to-win’ – like in almost every mobile game.
There’s no real ‘object’ to the game either – you can spend your entire time playing minigolf or dominoes if you so desire. Most players don’t, of course. But they sure as hell don’t sit there playing poker or slots for eight-hour stretches when you have a literal, consequence-free murder simulator – using frickin’ lasers mounted on helicopters – to roam around in.
So why remove the gambling part?
It’s another example of the government not understanding video games, part eleventy-billion in a series.
In the 1990s, the halcyon days of Doom and Mortal Kombat, governments of both flavours needed to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century, only introducing a R18+ adult rating for video games in 2011. Prior to that they were limited to MA15+, like films and television. If a title ‘exceeded’ the amounts of gore or sex or whatever arbitrary element the censors deemed unacceptable, they were outlawed. Even under the new regime, 17 games were refused classification (although some were re-classified after developers agreed to cut “offensive” content.)
When broadband became available (sort of) we could sail the high seas for ‘free’ from about 2002 to 2010. When massively multiplayer online gaming or gaming as a live service became popular, there was no more getting around paying full price for entry. Therefore, when it came to gambling content, the Australian Classification Board introduced M and R18+ ratings. Though not prohibited outright, games with “an element of chance such as paid loot boxes” (so pretty much all of them) would get an M rating, while any game with simulated gambling receives an R18+ rating. In a perfect world.
The eKaren’s introduction of an eSafety (lol) code that sits alongside an imperfect yet ‘functional’ classification regimen is unnecessary duplication of bureaucracy if we ever saw it. Video games aren’t a niche for nerds, but mainstream. A Screenhub survey shows 82 per cent of Australians play online games of some kind (think Candy Crush Saga rather than Battlefield 6 – see you on Tsuru Reef, scrub) and 71 per cent are over 18. Not exactly pimply teens playing Goldeneye 007 any more.
It would inspire a mass uprising against unelected, broad-spectrum fun and commonsense killer commissioners.
Most live service games like GTA:O must be purchased via gated digital distribution platforms, which require credit cards or online payment processors – something under 18s can’t (easily) access. Hell, the same report says 89 per cent of parents play with their children as a bonding experience. Minecraft, we hope. As for GTA:O, most players are over 18 because it’s an adult game aimed at adults.
If we must concede one liberty to protect children from harm, surely the classification system and half-decent parenting should be able to do the job? Surely consenting adults should be able to access all features of a live service video game if they choose? Or am I asking for too much? (eKaren: yes.)
Like everything in Australia – if it’s not mandatory, it’s banned.
So, I’ll continue to load up Red Dead Redemption 2 so I can shoot up a gun store, kill the owner, and use my blood money to buy more unregistered guns just to shoot Pinkertons and US Marshals faster. I just can’t walk across a gore-soaked dirt road and play blackjack. In a saloon. Teeming with outlaws, prostitutes, and bootleg everything.
I know this will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes, but Julie, if you’re reading this: at least make your censorship make sense.
This article was originally published by Liberty Itch.
