TalonBot
02-06-2009, 07:52 AM
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/analysis-opinion/), Odds and ends (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/odds-and-ends/), Blizzard (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/blizzard/), Economy (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/economy/), Expansions (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/expansions/), Making money (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/making-money/), Wrath of the Lich King (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/wrath-of-the-lich-king/)
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.wowinsider.com/media/2009/02/wowonsale.jpgOur good friend Tateru Nino (who is in fact an Aussie herself) has a followup over at Massively (http://www.massively.com/2009/02/06/australia-takes-no-action-on-unrated-computer-games/) about the report that World of Warcraft had been was no longer legally available in Oz (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/04/world-of-warcraft-no-longer-legally-for-sale-in-austrilia/) earlier this week. The issue seems to be not in the rules -- those are the same: unclassified games, of which World of Warcraft is one (http://www.massively.com/2009/01/28/mmogs-defy-classification-in-australia/) there, along with a few other popular MMOs, are held to the same rules as banned games, which means not allowed to be sold legally in the country -- but in the enforcement. As in, there isn't any. Since the issue has gone public, stores are continuing to sell the game (though some have removed larger sale displays of the games), and law enforcement had made no moves to try and get the games off of store shelves.
The real problem here, of course, isn't that Australia wants to ban these games, but that they're falling through the cracks of what seems to be an extremely lax rating system. There's really no rating assigned to these games, so according to the rules, they can't be sold. But the rules make no sense in this case: no one, as far as we've heard, actually wants to ban these games (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/09/world-of-warcraft-listed-as-one-of-the-30-most-offensive-games/) in the country, and no one cares whether they're being sold on store shelves or not.
Still, Massively does expect action, eventually, even if it's an apparently much-needed rejiggering of the ratings system (http://www.massively.com/2009/02/04/gaming-the-ratings-game/) to include these "unrated" games. Bottom line right now is that if you want to buy or sell World of Warcraft in Australia, no one's stopping you from doing so.http://www.wowinsider.com/media/feedlogo.gif (http://www.wowinsider.com)WoW still on store shelves in Australia (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/06/wow-not-exactly-banned-in-australia/) originally appeared on WoW Insider (http://www.wowinsider.com) on Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds (http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/).
Read (http://www.massively.com/2009/02/06/australia-takes-no-action-on-unrated-computer-games/) | Permalink (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/06/wow-not-exactly-banned-in-australia/) | Email this (http://www.wowinsider.com/forward/1452463/) | Comments (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/06/wow-not-exactly-banned-in-australia/#comments)
More... (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WowInsider/~3/533452294/)
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.wowinsider.com/media/2009/02/wowonsale.jpgOur good friend Tateru Nino (who is in fact an Aussie herself) has a followup over at Massively (http://www.massively.com/2009/02/06/australia-takes-no-action-on-unrated-computer-games/) about the report that World of Warcraft had been was no longer legally available in Oz (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/04/world-of-warcraft-no-longer-legally-for-sale-in-austrilia/) earlier this week. The issue seems to be not in the rules -- those are the same: unclassified games, of which World of Warcraft is one (http://www.massively.com/2009/01/28/mmogs-defy-classification-in-australia/) there, along with a few other popular MMOs, are held to the same rules as banned games, which means not allowed to be sold legally in the country -- but in the enforcement. As in, there isn't any. Since the issue has gone public, stores are continuing to sell the game (though some have removed larger sale displays of the games), and law enforcement had made no moves to try and get the games off of store shelves.
The real problem here, of course, isn't that Australia wants to ban these games, but that they're falling through the cracks of what seems to be an extremely lax rating system. There's really no rating assigned to these games, so according to the rules, they can't be sold. But the rules make no sense in this case: no one, as far as we've heard, actually wants to ban these games (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/09/world-of-warcraft-listed-as-one-of-the-30-most-offensive-games/) in the country, and no one cares whether they're being sold on store shelves or not.
Still, Massively does expect action, eventually, even if it's an apparently much-needed rejiggering of the ratings system (http://www.massively.com/2009/02/04/gaming-the-ratings-game/) to include these "unrated" games. Bottom line right now is that if you want to buy or sell World of Warcraft in Australia, no one's stopping you from doing so.http://www.wowinsider.com/media/feedlogo.gif (http://www.wowinsider.com)WoW still on store shelves in Australia (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/06/wow-not-exactly-banned-in-australia/) originally appeared on WoW Insider (http://www.wowinsider.com) on Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds (http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/).
Read (http://www.massively.com/2009/02/06/australia-takes-no-action-on-unrated-computer-games/) | Permalink (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/06/wow-not-exactly-banned-in-australia/) | Email this (http://www.wowinsider.com/forward/1452463/) | Comments (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/06/wow-not-exactly-banned-in-australia/#comments)
More... (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WowInsider/~3/533452294/)