So the NSW Minister for Police, Tony Kelly, has decided that MMOs are illegal in Australia. I put forward that the reason Mr. Kelly is so insistent on demonising games such as Warhammer Online or World of Warcraft is that he was recently busted having cyber sex with a Night Elf chick who turned out to be a dude. It’s the only scenario that makes any sense.

Actually there could be a couple of things going on here. The NSW MfP’s argument is that since these games don’t carry any classification, selling them is illegal. I looked it up in the OFLC database, and these games are indeed unclassified. The relevant industry association contends that since the games have no single-player component, classification is not required. These are the basic facts of the situation, and they’re undisputed.

The argument for not classifying these games (which I agree with) is that since all online interactions depend upon the unpredictable behaviour of other players, classifying a game based upon all possible activities in the game would be unfeasible. At the very least, all games which included unrestricted text chat could be held liable for the behaviour of filthy government ministers and their disgusting elf fetish. The model the ESRB in the US follows is that while the scripted, single-player components of games are rated, online interactions are not, for the mentioned reasons.

An optimistic assessment of this fiasco is that by calling for retailers to be reported for selling these items, the NSW Minister for Police is doing a sensible thing, essentially calling for reform of federal classification laws. This reform is desperately needed. Much as I’d like to think highly of our leaders (well not specifically my leaders - I’m a South Australian and this asshole is in New South Wales), I don’t find this plausible.

MMOs have been on sale in this country for a very long time now. Warcraft, the biggest game of the genre, went on sale here in late 2004. Warhammer Online went on sale late 2008, and that game runs servers in this country. I don’t think EA (or their local surrogates) would invest in that infrastructure without checking to see whether they were entering into a criminal enterprise.

No, what I think is going on here is misguided moralism. Game retailers are not breaking the law, and I expect any pending lawsuits to prove this. Well unless we get similarly misguided moralists as judges in those cases. So I guess we’re fucked. What I see going on here is the same reactionary nonsense that went on 30 years ago over Dungeons & Dragons. Misguided moralists pissed off not by a minor legal quibble, but by the general content of these games and the continued misconception that - like cartoons and comic books - “games are for kids”.