As if sensing that the world needed another reason to see gamers as social misfits, a band of Australians with an apparently staggering amount of free time are dressing up (down?) as zombies in an effort to convince their government to create an R18+ rating (roughly equivalent to an M-rated game in the U.S.) for video games.

Australia is somewhat famous in gaming culture for its particularly stringent policies regarding what games may be made available to its public. Games featuring an excessive amount of violence, drug use, or sexual content are banned outright. Fallout 3 was banned initially; Left 4 Dead 2 was as well. While some of the banned games are appealed or modified to lower the rating down to R15+, a few games never see the light of the outback day.

The Australian Federal government is concerned about the affect these games will have on children; opponents of an R18+ rating say that allowing the games to be marketed and sold will cause violence.

While I’m certainly not arguing for the wholesomeness of games like Manhunt and GTA IV, federal bans don’t seem to be the way to handle the problem. First of all, the idea of a federal government legislating morality and parenting gives me shivers. Second, bans like that do little to solve problems; historically, censorship has done more to increase publicity for a given work than keep it out of people’s hands.

On the other hand, dunking yourself in stage makeup and chasing senior citizens through Hyde Park might not be the best way to handle the problem, either.

Oh well. At least it’s more constructive than this woman:

Jerod Jarvis is an independent gaming journalist and founder of Duality Games. He maintains gaming columns for The Washington Times Communities and for The Outpost. When not blogging madly about games, he freelances for the Spokesman-Review in his hometown of Spokane, Washington and attends school at Whitworth University. Check out his presence on Facebook and Twitter to stay up on Duality Games updates and the inside scoop on the gaming news you care about.