I’d suggest reading the full letter for maximum rage, but if you just need a little bit of a 3pm fury top up, read some of the excerpts. He seriously believes that movies deserve to be classified differently because “in cinemas, the age of movie-goers can be regulated” (what about DVDs? Do they not count as movies?) and “access to electronic games, once in the home, cannot be policed and therefore the games are easily accessible to children”. Either can alcohol, and that’s arguably a lot more dangerous, but we trust parents to keep that out of their childrens’ hands…

Feel free to vent a bit below, but try and keep it civil. Last thing we want is to make him think his crusade against democracy is legitimate.

[Kotaku]

On the upside, it sounds like MS is making a concerted effort to work with ISPs other than iiNet to offer unmetered Xbox content:

“We’re doing a lot of work with ISPs. Late last year we announced a partnership with iiNet whereby all Xbox content is unmetered on their plans. Increasingly we’re trying to work with ISPs to say, this is an active community, these are consumers who are downloading a lot of content, and we need to have a better solution for them here in this market.

“With any of these partnerships, we do need to work in consultation with each ISP, and each provider does work a bit differently. Since our video-on-demand announcement [at E3], more ISPs are coming to us directly and saying ‘We want to understand how to best work with your platform so that consumers can have the best experience on our plans‘.”

Head on over to Kotaku to read the rest of the interview. From the sound of it, this could potentially be the best VOD service we’ve seen in Australia to date.

[Kotaku]

It’s an interesting read – make sure you head over to Kotaku to read all the findings if you are, or have ever thought of, pirating games.

[Kotaku]

Atkinson also revealed to Kotaku the reasons why the proposed discussion paper on the issue has been delayed for the past year. Kotaku had heard previously that it was Atkinson himself who had failed to deliver his feedback on the draft paper set for public consultation. But the minister now accuses his fellow Attorneys-General of stalling over proposed changes to the paper.

One thing you can’t accuse the minister of is failing to engage the issue, as he also took time to respond to a host of Kotaku reader comments. While some may accuse him of “trolling”, it’s refreshing to see a state politician willing to dive into the debate.

I would welcome a challenge in Croydon at the next general election (due in March 2010) about my record on censorship. Any reader who would like to challenge me should write to me c/- 488 Port Road, Welland 5007 and I will send him or her a nomination form to stand for Parliament.
Alas, one cannot stand for Parliament anonymously, so any contenders will have to supply a real name and street address, not a pseudonym and an email address.

Mr Atkinson, while I’m sure plenty of people would love to see you voted out in order to bring sanity back to the argument of classification in this country, it’s never going to happen and you know it, at least not off the back of this issue. What we want is for you to address the issues that have been raised in the quest for an appropriate rating for adult material, rather than blindly hiding behind the catch-all phrase that you’re “protecting the children”.

Still, if anyone is game to take on the Attourney General, or wants to read his letter in full, head on over to Kotaku for more details.

[Kotaku AU]

[Kotaku]

I found him on Kotaku as part of what appears to be a promo shot for some Call of Duty title on the Wii. And I had to check the photo a few times through the morning, just to assure some nagging part of my brain that even though I’ve written for Kotaku and been behind the scenes with Activision, no, I’ve never posed for an Activision photo shoot.

Even now I’m just beginning to be convinced, and only due to my diligent study.

He has my hair (both the curly mop on my head and the Ben Affleck from Chasing Amy wannabe thing on my face), but there’s something almost imperceptibly off. He has a stronger jaw that drives his visage to appear confident, fierce even. While you can see me on the right, tentatively trying Wii Music for the first time, you see other world me, confident me, attacking COD like I’m going to kill the TV.

Would this oddworld me win in a bar fight, a round of Wii Sports, or an IQ test? Would my wife find him attractive? None of these possibilities are all that fun to contemplate.

In the digital realm, you become accustomed to copies. Be it Bittorented MP3s or your Mona Lisa desktop wallpaper, a copy of almost anything is accessible in moments that’s indistinguishable from the real thing. Seeing a copy of yourself doesn’t feel nearly as convenient. It’s startling, and it calls to question, just how original am I after all? Just how “me” is my me?

I also don’t own red shoes, though after seeing this photo, that’s a situation that I clearly must remedy.

Also worth noting is that gaming hardware accessories grew 68% and games consoles lifted 43%. They’re huge growth figures, no matter which way you look at it.

Of course, the games industry has a much bigger challenge this year – the economy was going pretty strong for the first half of 2008. Hopefully you’ll all do your part for the economy and pick up the latest version of Guitar Hero when it comes out this year…

[IEAA (PDF link) and Kotaku AU]

We’ve not yet announced when the Community Games Channel will be available. The global and local teams are working on bringing the channel to Australia.

Of course, for a time MS kept telling me that they were planning on bringing the Zune to Australia too, and we all know how that played out. Here’s hoping they don’t keep us waiting for Kodu for too long…

[Kotaku AU]

Although their categories, like best art, best sound and best innovation may not be a great template for finding a game in a genre that YOU like, it is a jumping board to checking out quality games—which all of these are. We’d definitely go with GTA4, Metal Gear Solid 4, plus Dead Space (if you like shooters). [Kotaku]