Gamers4Croydon--the fledgling political party initially set up to take on then South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson and his anti-gaming stance--is no more. In a post on the party's official site, founder David Doe has disclosed that Gamers4Croydon will soon be disbanded, with moves already in place to deregister the group as an official political force.
In his post, Doe says that Gamers4Croydon had "run its course as a party." He continued, "But all good things come to an end, and it's time to pass the torch on to people with the resources and experience necessary to bring the change to bear politically. Having successfully been a part of removing one of the largest roadblocks to classification reform in this country, we feel that Gamers4Croydon has run its course as a party. As a result, we are in the process of de-registering the party."
Gamers4Croydon ran several candidates in this year's South Australian state election, and while it failed to win any seats, it did get good support, polling as much as 3.6 percent of the total vote in the seat of Croydon alone. The party was specifically set up in 2009 to try to oust Michael Atkinson, the man many gamers felt was the main block to the introduction of an R18+ classification for video games in Australia. While the party did not win against Atkinson, it did achieve its aim, with Atkinson quitting his post as attorney-general shortly after the election.
"We didn't win any seats, but we certainly exceeded our pre-election expectations by a large margin. We put political pressure on and helped unseat an attorney-general (who was oddly absent throughout the ALP's 2010 campaign). We (along with others) helped raise public awareness of the classification debate by getting on mainstream radio and television and outlaying the facts as they are, rather than as they are perceived or often portrayed," Doe said.
While the former party will not be having any representatives at the upcoming federal election, Doe did endorse the Australian Sex Party and the Greens as being deserving of gamer votes, saying that they were "the closest aligned to us ideologically."
For more on video game classification in Australia, check out GameSpot AU's Aussie Games Classification FAQ feature.
Discussion
Yeah bugger that, Greens wont get in but they will give their votes to that lost cause Labor.
@shani_boy101 Dude, a vote for Greens is a vote for Labor anyway.
Good work G4C. Now everyone, whatever you do, DO NOT vote for Labor or Liberal. Voting between those two parties is a lose-lose situation. Go Greens or independents.
Please please vote Greens next election, before we lose our freedom forever.
I naturally supported what they were hoping to achieve and they were a big help in raising awareness on the R rating issue. But as a political party I doubt many (myself included) could take them to seriously.
They did do a great job. They put pressure on that flippant jackass Atkinson to leave his undeserved post as AG. Good on ya GFC!! At least we still have Green Sex keeping the game up!
At least they made some kind of impact. Perhaps it will help start something bigger later on.
they might as well call themselves "rapists4croydon" the view of games is so bad in places.
they might as well call themselves "rapists4croydon" the view of games is so bad in places.
@ icey05 Agreed. I love what G4C did and attempted, but I don't think they really influenced Atkinson quitting in any way, shape or form.
*Salute* though I never said this before I dont think, but Ive always loved their logo.
to say they achieved their goal when atkinson left, is a bit ambititious, something tells me that they singly had no baring on his decision at all. maybe gamers as a whole, but i doubt they hurt his feelings or anything.
im not disappointed, and while i support their motivation, i dont see how they expected to get anywhere at all... i mean, to the non-gaming community, a party with PS3 controllers as their logo wont be taken seriously.. and what happenes when they get their way, theyd have no idea how to have handled other matters, like education, environment etc.. still, their cause was good
That's a little disappointing. But the rating is only a matter of time.
Oh well, they tried, and that's great. Too bad about their name; I imagine that would have cost them votes.