The game-hating government of Australia is still at it, it seems. Not content with limiting access to any offline game rated more spicy than 15+, the mostly conservative parliament still has it sights on banning many online games.

Which onlines games? Well, the ones that aren't subject to rating because online experiences are subject to change -- which is most of them. World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, even technically FIFA '09 could be banned. Only online games that could be guaranteed 'okay' for a person 15 years of age or younger would not have to worry about be censored. Even 'games' that aren't really so much games, like Second Life, would be subject to banishment. 

You are probably familair with that little ERSB warning message that comes up when you play pretty much any console online game, saying that the company can not be responsible for changes of ratings due to online content. That means the game is considered unclassified, rating-wise, for online play, which means that it Australia could ban a lot of games for a lot of people.

As the average age for gamers is 30 in Australia, according to a study done by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, it seems that this harshly misguided endeavor could at least somewhat be stemming from the faulty impression of the Australian parliament that video games are mostly played by people under 18.

The man to thank for this effort in banning most online games is Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

It seems odd that on television you can see murder and breasts, yet WoW might be banned when at worst you might see a virtual tea-bagging or some elves in their underwear dancing a jig. But it doesn't seem like logic had much to do with the formulation of this plan to put a handful of censors in charge of determining what the entire population should or should not be doing with their 15+ recreation time.