Outrage for outrage's sake. School Shooter was a home-made mod that was pulled from the mod site it was on shortly after release.

I'm not sure where to begin with this. Last Thursday, Channel 7's Talitha Cummins presented a news segment called, 'Video Games Under Fire'. It was roundly slammed as one-sided, inaccurate and painted a misleading pictures of games and people who play them. Today in The Australian, columnist, Imre Salusinszky cites Channel 7's piece as reference material before mirroring its content and then embellishes the matter with even more outrageous examples. What's more, the expert used to validate the article says, "it is a long time since I have been so egregiously misquoted."

Salusinszky's piece, "Legal change may allow killer games" opens with the following:

Computer games in which the player has virtual sex with a prostitute before killing her, or moves through a school cafeteria shooting helpless students, could become available in Australia under a new classification system planned by the nation's attorneys-general.

This casually-outraged, out-of-context and factually-wrong opening statement sets the tone for the rest of the article. You can read it here but most of it is behind The Australian's new, easy-to-hack paywall.

Once again NSW Attorney General, Greg Smith gets involved and is reported in the following way,

Concerned over the changes, NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith has written to his state and federal counterparts warning that the new system must not dilute laws by giving banned video games a new R18+ rating.

This troubling development suggests that the ten-year-long wait for an R18 rating for games has once again been hijacked by morally-outraged groups who are still unaware about the truth of games launched in Australia. In reality, hardly any games get banned. Those that are banned are invariably freely available to purchase online and are rarely as disturbing as other titles that are available currently at MA15 - Manhunt 2 is arguably the only exception in the past five years.

Nonetheless, Salusinszky back this up by once again referring to the discredited scene from Grand Theft Auto which was never officially part of a game and was never, nor ever will be, launched in Australia. Read the iGEA's rebuttal to Channel 7 making identical claims here.

Salusinszky acknowledges the scene "was required to be removed in Australia" but mentions it anyway. Probably because, when taken out of context, it sounds even more disturbing:

In a sequence in the popular Grand Theft Auto game that was required to be removed in Australia, the player has sex with a prostitute in his car before shooting her and stealing the money he paid her.

His next example of an awful game goes one better.

In the yet-to-be-released School Shooter: North American Tour 2012, the player mimics the activities of mass murderers such as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.

School Shooter: North American Tour 2012 isn't actually a game. It was a home-made modification for Half-Life 2 which was pulled from the hosting mod site shortly after release. To suggest it was official in any way is misleading, to suggest that it will be coming to Australia is downright wrong. [as an aside: here's an interesting 'short film' of the 'game's' development]

The main discussion about currently-banned games being allowed with an R18 classification deals with Left 4 Dead 2 (a popular zombie shooter) and Mortal Combat IX (the ninth iteration of a long-running fighting game). The number of more-disturbing games currently available in Australia is very large.

There then follows two quotes from Greg Smith about how he wants to "protect young people and women from sexual violence and the commercialisation of sexual violence".

This again appears to be referring to the Grand Theft Auto scene which isn't representative of adult games in any meaningful way.

We are told that this is what he told The Australian. One wonders what other journalists, particularly The Australian's excellent technology journalists think about having their organ validate claims such as these?

But to be fair to Smith, it sounds like he has been misinformed by someone. He clearly doesn't know about the reality of adult games. If he thinks they are all like this, is it any wonder he's mortified at the thought of a flood of them appearing? Nonetheless, he is then quoted as saying:

I understood that a promise was made that games that were refused classification in the past, before any R18+ regime was approved, would remain refused, but I have the impression there are some games that may become classified now.

It's almost as if someone had waved all of this "evidence" under Smith's nose and given him only one possible response. But let's not get into conspiracy theories. We asked his office about his new stance after his Channel 7 appearance but all we were told was:

The NSW Government is committed to the introduction of an R18+ classification for computer games. The Government will consider the proposed Guidelines for the Classification of Computer Games carefully and announce its final decision in due course.

Ultimately, however, it begs the following questions; is Salusinszky trying to enforce his own moral views on the public by using outlandish evidence to back up his claims? Is he really informing the public of all the facts on the matter? Is there a semblance of balance anywhere to be seen?

As an addendum he brings in an expert on the matter:

Education and child psychology expert Glenn Cupit, from the University of South Australia, shared Mr Smith's concerns. "The new R18+ category would allow for a whole lot of material currently refused classification," Dr Cupit said.

We asked Dr Cupit whether he had seen the article or knew about the context in which his quote was being used. Here's his response:

Amazing - it is a long time since I have been so egregiously misquoted. I obviously cannot recall the exact words but it was something like what follows: Responding to a question directly on whether the new classifications would lead to materials currently refused classification being allowed to enter with an R18+ classification I said something like; "If you listened to the rhetoric around the issue when the new classification system was proposed you could well believe so as there was a great deal of emphasis on gamers as adults having the right to play whatever they liked without restrictions such as were built into the M15+ classification, however, I am not at all sure that the politicians and regulators would think like that as there has also been a lot of emphasis from them of the need to reclassify M15+ material of the most violent kind into the new R classification. We will have to wait and see."

This is the third time in a week where the R18 games clasification proposal appears to be being hijacked by moral-outrage groups. While everyone is entitled to their own opinion on the matter, the "facts" used to back up opposition claims have not once stood up to scrutiny. Most troubling of all is that Greg Smith is repeating the claims verbatim, Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O'Connor (who is in charge of the legislation) is pandering to these groups whenever the subject comes up and the proposed legislation itself does similar. We'll be following developments and closely scrutinising any public claims made by media and government.