Question for the board: Who is this?

[El Pollo Guerrera]

I've been watching Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's "Zero Punctuation" game reviews, and it looks like this guy's face is in all of them.

Anyone know?

[Geek King]

I don't remember the name, but I think he's an Austrailian politician who likes to blame videogames for all of society's ills. Yahtzee does mention his name in some of the rants.

[Kara]

That is Micheal Atkinson. He's sort of like an Australian Jack Thompson, only he actually got the government to listen. He is the reason that "mature" rated games are banned in Australia. Because it will destroy the fragile little children's minds.

I know nothing of the Australian government, but I've looked him up before wondering the same thing.

Also, <3 Yahtzee. Forever.

[phoenixv07]

The video game rating system used in Australia doesn't have a rating equivalent to Mature, which means that games that would otherwise be rated Mature don't get a rating at all. It's my understanding that it's illegal, or close to it, to sell an unrated game there.

Michael Atkinson (the former Attorney-General of South Australia, so a man with a bit of political clout) has taken every opportunity to prevent the introduction of a Mature rating for games. He's also done some other interesting (stupid) things, like trying to make it illegal to comment online on elections without providing a legal name and postal code first.

Per his Wikipedia, however, he's no longer in office as of March 2010.

[Ree]

Going to close this due to the fratching nature of the discussion.

The question has been answered.