Dust Bowl Blogging

Why Bahrain should be the most important race in Formula One’s recent history.

On March 17 the UK Foreign Office urged all Britons to leave Bahrain immediately. The Arab Spring uprisings had caught the attention of the western world as governments from northern Africa and the Middle East were challenged by swarms of protesters. As a result, power was ceded in Egypt and Tunisia, civil war broke out in Libya and major uprisings occurred in Yemen and Syria. In Bahrain demonstrations were met with heavy-handed tactics from forces employed by the government. They had been ongoing since February 14.

The 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix had been scheduled to take place at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir. Since joining the calendar in 2004, the race had been seen a bridge between Formula One’s traditional European base and the Middle East. It was set to open the season on March 13, but the protests forced the sport to postpone the race. The organisers would be given until May 1 to conclude whether the race would be rescheduled.

The Formula One circus continued its global tour, this time beginning in Melbourne, giving the teams an extra two weeks to iron out any preseason bugs. When Sebastian Vettel crossed the start line for the 58^th time and was greeted by the chequered flag the sport had moved on. With or without a race in Bahrain, the teams still had an exhausting 19 other races to complete after Melbourne.

Despite ongoing protests and political instability, the deadline for the race organisers to announce a rescheduled event had been extended to June 3. With a calendar that was already one of the longest in the sports history, the only way to include Bahrain would be to lengthen the season. In this case, it would prove to be a highly unpopular decision.

At a meeting of Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, a decision to reinstate the event was made. The Indian Grand Prix would be shifted from October 30 to December 4, and Bahrain would take its place. A press release by the FIA insisted that a fact-finding mission at the request of FIA President Jean Todt had taken place. FIA Vice President, Carlos Gracia, met with Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Bahrain Motor Federation, Bahrain International Circuit as well as a member of the National Institute of Human Rights and a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) voted unanimously to reinstate the race.

The FIA stated; “This decision reflects the spirit of reconciliation in Bahrain, which is evident from the strong support the race receives from the Government and all major parties in Bahrain, including the largest opposition group, all of whom endorse the Formula One Grand Prix and motor sport in the country. The WMSC feels that reinstating the Grand Prix is a means of helping to unite people as the country looks to move forward, and also recognises the commitment made by the Formula One teams, their employees and families, and personnel associated with the Championship including the local team of volunteers who are so vital to the event.”

The decision was not taken lightly by those in and around the sport. Firstly, the teams were upset at the extension of the season and the logistical problems of the reschedule. Australian Formula One driver, Mark Webber, took to his website and criticised the decision to reinstate the race.  Webber felt the sport should have taken firmer action and says the decision “would have sent a very clear message about F1’s position on something as fundamental as human rights and how it deals with moral issues. It’s obvious that the parties involved have struggled to reach a decision but sadly I feel that they still haven’t made the right one.”

Mark Webber was unique among drivers in speaking his mind on the topic, saying “As a competitor I do not feel at all comfortable going there to compete in an event when, despite reassurances to the contrary, it seems inevitable that it will cause more tension for the people of that country.”

One week after the announcement, the event was officially cancelled and the Indian Grand Prix was restored to its original date. Correspondence letters between the FIA and the Formula One Teams Association was published on the FIA website where the teams outlined their logistical concerns and the FIA reiterated that despite asking the sport’s Commercial Rights Holder, the teams were obligated to compete. At the same time, organisers of the event announced that they were unable to host the event at any date and the debate had essentially ended. One week later, the FIA released an updated race schedule that was identical to the one prior to the Melbourne Grand Prix.

For 2012, the event has again been reinstated and is scheduled to be the fourth race of the season and held on April 22. Two provisional calendars were released in June and July of 2011 before the final calendar was announced on August 31. Despite this, many in the Formula One paddock are still sceptical as to whether the race should go ahead. There is still time for a resolution, but reports from Bahrain indicate that there is still trouble in the kingdom – on October 6 a 17-year-old male was reportedly shot and killed by a Bahraini Security Force pellet gun.

With that in mind, it brings into question why the event was reinstated in the first place. In hindsight the country was not fit to host the event, yet the sport’s decision makers saw past this. This glaring oversight casts further doubt on the decision to reinstate the event for 2012. It is apparent that the FIA and the sports commercial stakeholders will do their best to have a race in Bahrain and it remains to be seen the lessons learned in 2011 will become apparent to both the FIA, and the Bahraini Government.

A billion reasons the Indian Grand Prix will be the real winner this season.

In 2004 Formula One added races in Bahrain and China to its lengthening calendar. The move was part of the sport’s shift from its traditional European base into the new world. Austria’s A1 ring was the first sacrifice, but races in San Marino, Germany, France and occasionally Belgium would follow.

Broadening the reach of the sport made a lot of sense in 2004. Bahrain was willing to supply a lot of money to host the race and since then the profile has increased in the Middle-East region. Companies from around the region like Etihad and Emirates began sponsoring teams, and eventually cashed-up consortiums began taking stake in the sport’s top teams, with Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren all being part owned by these groups. Qatar began hosting their own MotoGP race, but it was Abu Dhabi who really took western motorsport to heart. They opened their wallets and weren’t content with having their own race, and so built a Ferrari theme park next to the circuit.

China offered a potentially huge new audience, and was another cash cow waiting to be milked. Races in the East had already proved popular in Japan and Malaysia, and with China being the upcoming mover and shaker in the world, the race was a perfect opportunity for the teams and their stakeholders to take advantage of this. Multinational companies like HSBC and HP changed their sponsorship decals for the new audience and BAR Honda went for a complete rebranding, with Lucky Strike being replaced by 555.

China’s influence on Formula One has not been as pronounced as the initial hopes would have predicted. In a twist of circumstance, Austria’s involvement in the sport has grown since its axing. The country has had three race drivers take to the grid, but more significantly won last season’s driver and constructor titles through Red Bull Racing. Their on-track contribution to the sport has greatly usurped that of China, Turkey, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and South Korea– the countries deemed more worthy of hosting a grand prix, and demonstrates that somewhere along the way, Formula One’s expansion lost its focus. However, the upcoming inaugural Indian Grand Prix presents the sport’s best opportunity since 2004 to increase the global spotlight on the sport.

When the five lights went black and Narain Karthikeyan eased his clutch out on the grid of the 2005 Australian Grand Prix, he became the first driver from India to compete in Formula One. The newly bought Jordan team were short on cash, something Karthikeyan supplied through his personal sponsor, the Tata group. Though his performances did not set the world alight, having an Indian driver in Formula One planted the seed for future interest from the region in the sport.

At the conclusion of the 2005 season, Karthikeyan and Tata joined Williams and spent two seasons as the team’s fourth driver. He was rarely seen in the car, but the Tata logo was prominent on the noses of the FW28 and FW29. Such was the impact and importance of burgeoning Indian market that Ferrari convinced Tata to buy space on their 2009 car as they increased their motoring presence off the track by purchasing Jaguar and Land Rover.

For the 2008 season, Spyker, (who was Karthikeyan’s old team, Jordan, in a previous guise) was bought by Vijay Mallya. As the owner of Kingfisher breweries and airlines, Mallya became one of India’s richest men. Having previously sponsored Toyota in 2007, he stepped out on his own with Force India. In what could have been an Indian super team, Mallya opted for the experience of Giancarlo Fisichella over the dollars of Karthikeyan.

Despite buying a second-hand team and racing a one-year-old, the team’s fortunes improved under Mallya. Showing his business savvy and favouring experience over national pride, the team refocused their resources on the upcoming season, and some canny design work earned them pole position and a subsequent second place in the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix. In the team’s four seasons they have finished 10^th, 9^th, 7^th and currently sit in 6^th place in the constructor’s championship.

While this has been happening, another Indian driver, Karun Chandhok, began his career in Formula One. For half of 2010 he drove for Hispania Racing Team before being replaced for sponsorship reasons. In 2011 Chandhok’s seat at Hispania was taken by his countryman, Karthikeyan, while he became the test and reserve driver for Team Lotus, racing for the team in the German Grand Prix.

The proliferation of India in Formula One is symbiotic of the sport’s impending race in the country. As teams and sponsors aim to leverage off this newfound interest, it only serves to increase the sport’s profile even more. There are over a billion reasons why an Indian Grand Prix should work, and unlike the other countries Formula One has expanded into, India already has a recent relationship with the sport.

Track designer Hermann Tilke has overseen the design of all of the new Formula One circuits since 2011. If he can translate the country’s enthusiasm for the sport into an exciting spectacle on track, the race will be deemed a success by the fans outside of India. No matter who stands on top of the podium in India, there are billions of potential winners for this event.

2011 Japanese Grand Prix review

Until Saturday afternoon, the top of the time sheets had been owned by McLaren’s Jenson Button. Buoyed by a three-year contract extension, the 2009 World Champion looked a class above the field in the opening three practice sessions.

For Button, Suzuka had become a second home race. He is the former poster boy for Japanese manufacturer Honda’s foray into F1, has a Japanese girlfriend and has the Japanese characters Ichi ban (number one) printed on top of his helmet. For this race he even replaced the Union Jack motif on his helmet with Japan’s rising sun.

However, on Saturday afternoon, Button’s supremacy over Suzuka’s figure-eight was usurped by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. Needing one point to wrap up the title, the young German surprised his own team with a lap that put him on pole position. In a session where more cars elected to save their tyres than offer a qualifying lap, Vettel trumped the whole field with a lap that was only 1/100^th of a second quicker than Button’s. Further down the grid, Kamui Kobayashi had the home crowd on their feet with his 7^th place while Mark Webber and Michael Schumacher seemed to disrupt Lewis Hamilton enough that he was unable to tour the circuit quick enough and set a flying lap in Q3.

Come race day, Button was fired up to make amends for qualifying and to keep the championship battle alive. As the five lights went out he was forced onto the grass by the slow starting Sebastian Vettel. Though the world title had been essentially won at turn one, an aggrieved Button took to his radio demanding that Vettel be penalised for his start-line move. When nothing occurred, Button had to sit tight and let the race come to him. With all teams suffering severe tyre wear, his signature smooth driving style would be the perfect counterpunch to the aggression shown by his rivals.

By lap 9 the race began to sway in Button’s favour, as his slower teammate Lewis Hamilton was forced into the pits with a right-rear puncture. Not long after race-leader Sebastian Vettel headed to the pits after it became apparent his rear tyres had started to fade. Button followed a lap later and momentarily closed the gap at the front.

When Vettel stopped again on lap 19, Button again stopped a lap later but this time was able to gain track position over the German. Lap 24’s safety car offered an opportunity for Vettel to close the gap to Button, but it was Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso who would be the largest beneficiary of the intervention, as he later took the position from Vettel.

With the front three swapping positions, Michael Schumacher spent his afternoon breaking records and front wings. At 42-years-old, Schumacher broke Jack Brabham’s 1970 record of being the oldest driver to lead a grand prix. Somewhat fittingly, he broke another Australian’s front wing as he tussled with Mark Webber. The two shrugged the incident off in a way that Lewis Hamilton and Felippe Massa should take note of, as for the second race in a row the pair collided with Massa coming off worse for wear.

Kamui Kobayashi was unable to turn his translate his Saturday form into points. Despite his prayers from inside his cockpit on the grid, he slid down the order at the first corner and never recovered. Although he is revered for his bravery when it comes to overtaking, his race was a relatively quiet affair. This quiet approach was mirrored by his teammate, Sergio Perez, who despite his illness was able to drive the car into a points position by making fewer stops than the rest of the field.

Bruno Senna was not able to live-up to his surname at a track where his uncle helped shape the Senna legend. Vitaly Petrov in the other Renault had an admirable race to 9^th place and was joined in the final points paying positions by Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg. Rosberg, who had started last on the grid, raced through the field and overtook both Force Indias having taken advantage of having an extra set of tyres due to his qualifying mishap. Both Force India cars raced well and it could be said that Adrian Sutil’s move on the inside of Kamui Kobayashi at 130R could have been worth points on its own. Alas, 11^th place was the best he could offer.

As the race drew to a close, there were five world champions in the top six, the front three in different cars. Though he had fallen behind Alonso, Vettel was about to take the title of youngest ever back-to-back world champion from him. Alonso would get close to Button, but the checkered flag fell before he had the opportunity to overtake. As Button pulled up close to his pitwall to celebrate his victory, Sebastian Vettel followed him as he celebrated his second world title in a row. On a day where he lost the battle on track, he won the war to keep the number one on his car.

Coming into the race, for Sebastian Vettel to lose the title he needed to fail to score at all of the remaining races, while Jenson Button had to win them all. Button had done his best to make this happen, but in typical form, Vettel showed maturity and poise that defies his years. The home crowd’s favourite may not have delivered on race day, but their adopted son rose to the occasion. As Button’s named returned to the top of the timesheets in Suzuka, he did so with the rising sun shining from his helmet.

UMass - communication culture

www.lewmass.blogspot.com

A collection of blog posts.

Bruno Senna : What’s in a name

Part 1

Part 2

My application to the BCM internship.

BCM Internship Program

www.masslive.com

www.lew-s-a.blogspot.com

www.twitter.com/lewisliveshere

Prosopagnosia - 7/6/2010

Imagine a situation where you wake up every day to a house full of unknown faces, where every reflection in a mirror is a stranger staring back. These people are not unfamiliar, but simply unrecognisable. It is a circumstance that is becoming more and more prominent and its effects present a variety of challenges to both the sufferer and the environments in which they live.

Prosopagnosia, or as it is commonly referred, face blindness is a neurological disorder that impedes the ability for a person to recognise faces. The capacity to actually see faces is unrelated to the condition and so a person with perfect vision can suffer from face blindness.

Historically, face blindness was believed to be solely acquired. The most common causes were thought to be from physical damage to the brain due to stroke or brain injuries. However, new research has discovered that face blindness may be a congenital condition and is more common than first anticipated.

A study of seven families of prosopagnosia sufferers by the Institute for Human Genetics in Münster, Germany revealed that 38 relatives demonstrated symptoms of face blindness. This revelation triggered further research into the genetic aspects of the condition.

Brenna Quinlan is a 23 year old visual arts graduate who suffers from facial blindness. Knowledge of the disorder is so unapparent that it was only through chance that Brenna was diagnosed.

Media and science personality, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is a noted sufferer of face blindness and has frequently revealed intimate details of his disorder through the media.  Brenna happened to be listening to one of his radio shows on ABC’s JJJ station when he elaborated on his condition. A sense of familiarity then washed over Brenna and “all these problems that I had suddenly had an explanation”.

Once Brenna’s condition had a name, a search of the internet led her to the online tests provided by faceblind.org. The Famous Faces Test uses images of celebrities where their ears and hair are cropped to reveal only their facial features. On this test the average score is 85, but for Brenna her score totalled 57% - a result that put her in the range of a prosopagnosia sufferer.

For Brenna, instances of face blindness had occurred from an early age and often resulted in some form of social faux pas. The first noted instance was when she was 7 years old. Walking home from school with her mother, a young girl said hello from a passing car. Not recognising her, Brenna simply ignored the greeting and continued walking. Her mother immediately pointed out the rudeness. This act of perceived impoliteness was part of a larger problem and an early indicator of the unfavourable social situations that regularly affect a face blindness sufferer.

A person with face blindness will typically adapt to the condition to avoid social awkwardness and employ a number of alternative ways to recognise someone. The most common method of remembering is to concentrate on other parts of a person’s appearance. Brenna says “if I really try, I can study someone’s face… I’ll say their eyes remind me of this person I’ve seen before. Their jaw line reminds of this person. I’ll remember their hair colour or anything odd like a mole or piercing. Normally at parties I just remember people by their shirt.” However, these are just workarounds and the next day if the person has changed clothes Brenna will not recognise them.

Fortunately for Brenna a lot of her friends are particularly “weird looking”, with prominent features like brightly coloured hair, tattoos and piercings. These then become indicators for her to recognise them. Despite this, most social situations present themself as “a new party and new group of people to forget.”

Further to this, the complexity of the condition is displayed as Brenna is able to better recognise a face on a photograph than she can in real life. She feels her artistic abilities allow her to map a face out on a two dimensional plane, but the translation back to real life is not always apparent. There are three steps to memorising faces. The first is general visual perception, which Brenna had no difficulties with. The second is visual perception for faces. As faces all have 2 eyes, 1 mouth and a nose the intricate differences between people are mapped. Again, Brenna is able to complete this. The final stage is face memory and this is where Brenna struggles. However, as her visual perception is at a normal level, recognising a face in a picture is easier than seeing someone in person.

Explaining her condition has often proved difficult for Brenna. When she tells someone she is bad with faces she is often met with a response like ‘I’m bad with words.’ She feels these statements trivialise the disorder and are evidence of the widespread ignorance of such a common condition.

These social consequences have caused a number of face blindness sufferers to become introverted about their disorder. Once diagnosed, Brenna’s immediate family joined her in taking the online test and all scored lower than the average. The congenital effects in her life then became more apparent, but more startling for Brenna was her father’s refusal to take the online test.

Brenna says her father shows the greatest signs of face blindness in the family. He regularly confuses celebrities and acquaintances with people who have few physical features in common, often including different skin colours. Despite the increasing numbers of diagnoses, Brenna feels it is because of the inherent embarrassment about the condition that people like her father are intimidated by the idea of them being different.

This embarrassment and social awkwardness extended to the way research for the condition is gathered. Having taken part in a research session at Macquarie University’s Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Brenna left feeling frustrated and exhausted. At the time the researchers were focusing on the link between autism and prosopagnosia, as their previous research had found autism sufferers have trouble recognising faces. Brenna felt the idiosyncrasies of her condition were relevant to prosopagnosia research but were instead ignored. Rather than focusing on causes and links to other syndromes, she felt it would be more beneficial for sufferers to collaborate on methods for dealing with the condition.

 Given the increased numbers of reported cases of prosopagnosia, it is important that the disorder is given greater public recognition. Such a common disorder could hypothetically have a drastic effect on the credibility of a witness in court, police reports and other legal issues. However, for a sufferer like Brenna improving the awareness of face blindness would have a dramatic effect.  Put simply, it would be “nice for people not to think I was rude.”

The Gaslight Anthem: Swimming, not sinking.

It’s great to see punk rockers grow up. Gone are the mohawks, leather jackets, ripped jeans and songs about anarchy. In their place stand acoustic guitars, harmonicas, plaid shirts and folk songs. It’s as if punks have regressed to their earliest form, that of Wood Guthrie, a pro-left, American folk singer whose songs inspired countless American youths to either stand up to the man, pick up a guitar or both. Just ask Bob Dylan, who says of his first Woody Guthrie record “I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned — didn’t know whether I was stoned or straight.” With American Slang - The Gaslight Anthem’s third studio album - we are hearing the needle drop.

The New Jersey quartet formed in 2005 and released their first full length album, Sink or Swim, in 2007. It was a fast paced affair that demonstrated the band’s capacity to show off their punk rock chops whilst simultaneously exploring their inherent ability to write catchy songs and tell the type of stories Mark Twain would be proud of. The 2008 sequel, The ‘59 Sound, was met with large critical acclaim. The songs referenced Dickens, noir-era Americana and romantic tales from the Jersey Shore. If it were a painting, it would be equal parts Edward Hopper and Banksy. The album made all the right noises and impressed a myriad of people, most notably Bruce Springsteen, who asked the relatively unknown punk band to support him on his U.K. arena shows.

Clearly it takes something special for a punk rock band to support one of the biggest rock acts in the world, and that’s exactly what The Gaslight Anthem are. Their songs may be fast, filled with distorted guitar and raspy vocals, but at their roots are the foundations for every great rock song. It’s no wonder The Boss handpicked his hometown comrades, he probably hears more of himself than he does Joe Strummer in their songs.

Springsteen isn’t the only one to hear these comparisons. With American Slang, we hear the band maturing. They are edging further from their original punk rock vision and sounding more like The Boss with every note. The songs are slower, but catchier, and while it might put off some of their original fans, it will definitely endear them to a larger audience. And that is the problem with many of these modern punk bands, when they begin to break the rules of what being punk is, they are ironically ostracised. However, The Gaslight Anthem have a self assuredness that shows their style is more fusion than identity crisis.

American Slang owes more to John Steinbeck than Johnny Rotten. Again, it’s Americana, romance and road songs spliced with distorted guitars. Make no mistake, this is a very good album, and one that will propel the band to a new level of popularity, it’s just that punk rock ethos that was fundamental in separating the band from their peers is lacking. They’re not quite at the Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan level yet, but they’re travelling down that same dusty road. American Slang is not a very good punk album, but as a straight up rock album, it’s easily one of 2010’s best.


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Listen to if you like Against Me!, Bruce Springsteen, Social Distortion

To see a free preview of The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon doing his best Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen go here.

Australian gamers, left 4 kids.

There is a soft breeze in the air, the sky is the kind of azure a poet would dream of writing about and the sun is unusually clement for this time of year. It’s a beautiful Autumn Saturday afternoon in Sydney and over 500 zombies are going to make the most of it.

Wait, what?

Zombies?

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Australian video gamers are taking the battles from their computer screens and bringing them into the street. There is an uprising against the current classification guide enforced by the Australian Government because it does not include an R18+ rating. Under this system, numerous video games are modified to meet the lower, MA15+ rating in order to be sold on the store shelves while other games are banned altogether. There is no other vineyard in the world like Australia, where people labour to get an opportunity to shoot a few more zombies.

According to a study by Bond University in Queensland of over 4,800 people, the average age of the Australian gamer is 30 years old. Anthony Relf of The Gamesmen in Wollongong agrees, saying that their biggest market is adults and that this surprises people. The classification laws were initially designed to prevent minors from buying games, but according to Mr Relf, “kids don’t have the money, their parents do.”

Mr Relf is one of the many Australian gamers pushing for an R18+ classification. According to the Bond University study, he is not alone. 91% of respondents - gamers or not – feel there should be an R18+ classification, even if it is in order to achieve a level of consistency across the board.

When Australia’s video game classification guide was drawn up in 1995, video game images were still at a primitive pixelated plateau. The Office of Film and Literature Classification Review Board acted upon the medium’s rising popularity, and appropriated the same classification criterion for film and television. However, there was one major difference; any game considered higher than an MA15+ rating could not be sold in Australia.

While this may have been an appropriate decision to make at the time, the vast improvements in technology have allowed video game developers to expand their art into a realm of visual realism. As the medium continues to unfold, it is becoming apparent to developers and gamers alike that the system needs to evolve with it.

University of Wollongong digital communications lecturer Dr Chris Moore feels Australia’s video game classification should incorporate an R18+ rating and be separate from film. According to Dr Moore, the review boards assume games have a bigger impact on the viewer because of their interactivity, “when video games are classified the review board is only shown a game, rather than playing it.”Dr Moore also states that “I don’t think you can regulate a film without watching it. You can’t read a script of a film and regulate it effectively.”

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The 500 zombies that staggered, lurched and swayed through Sydney on March 27 had foregone their usual diet of brains and human carcasses, and instead were ravenous for an adults-only rating classification. The theme of the demonstration was adapted from the video game ‘Left 4 Dead 2’, where the title’s graphic theme of slaughtering zombies earned it a Refused Classification rating.

The game was quickly modified for the sales floor of Australia’s retail stores. Gone were the elements of gore and with them went the game’s marketability. According to Mr Relf the game sold poorly as no one over the age of 18 wanted to play it; “it didn’t affect the kids at all.”

A small-scale Zombie outbreak in Australia’s largest city is only a minor part of what is being done to emancipate gamers. Ironically, support for the cause has spread as fast as a zombie virus. When the retailer ‘Game’ launched a petition to allow for an R18+ classification in February 2010, they received over 89,000 signatures before submitting it to the Government. This response is greater than what the Government received in opposition to its Workplace Relations Reform.

Under current Australian law, unanimous support by all state and territory attorney-generals is required to amend the classification system. Former South Australia Attorney General Michael Atkinson harboured no secrets in his opposition to introducing an R18+ classification, painting himself as a giant target for the gaming community. In the recent South Australian election, a video game developer established the Gamers 4 Croydon party, and ran in the election in a bid to unseat Mr Atkinson. Although they received only 3.7% of the vote in the Croydon area, the party firmly established how important video game playing and freedom of speech is to the Australian national identity.

Twenty one-year-old student and gamer Nathan Harrison believes these laws do not reflect well upon Australia. “It’s annoying when certain games won’t get released, especially Fallout with the morphine,” Harrison says. “If I was in a nuclear post apocalyptic landscape I would use morphine. I don’t think that’s irresponsible.” Mr Harrison added that “there is enough of a delineation between reality and the game that it shouldn’t affect people”.

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With Michael Atkinson leaving his post as South Australian Attorney-General, a new level of classification appears closer to Australian gamers. His replacement, John Rau, has revealed he does not share his predecessor’s opinion on the same issue. Dr Moore feels an appropriate solution to the problem is a twostep process. He feels initially an R18+ classification needs to be introduced, and then Australia can look to the self regulation systems successfully deployed in the United Kingdom and United States of America. “These systems aren’t perfect, but I think an industry regulation is a better approach. Not a government appointed board, but an industry checking up on each other making sure that they’re all making the games that everyone wants to play.”

The battle to disencumber gamers from a rating system they feel neglects adults more than minors could be the hardest game they will ever play. Victory is not assured, but the unification of Australians fighting for freedom of speech shows how important it is to the public. For now the Government will have to deal with gamers taking them on, when both parties would much rather they divert their attention to zombies.