The Guardian is running an article on this particularly amusing event,

The company abruptly abandoned its case against Everiss, which was being heard in the supreme court in Sydney, halfway through the second day of the case – and is now facing a legal bill of A$114,000 (£68,800) for the defence’s costs.

In a statement put out by Benjamin Gifford, the "vice development director" of Evony’s legal and intellectual property strategic division, the company said that it would not pursue the case in Australia or elsewhere. He told the Guardian that the decision had been driven by criticism from players of the game. "A lot of our players expressed opinions about the lawsuit," he said, "and we reacted to that."

Wow. That’s a lot of money! So it’s about how the players view the lawsuit? Or perhaps it’s just that Evony will have to face discovery and perhaps some character witnesses who might point out that in fact the game is extremely sleazy, bilks players out of their money offering little in return, and that’s that?

According to sources about the libel suit their case also started to fall apart today when Benjamin Gifford, the "vice development director" of Evony’s legal and intellectual property strategic division, went under cross-examination. He was forced to admit that his claims to have BA and MBA degrees were not true. Then Everiss’s lawyers managed to make direct connections between Evony and two companies:  Regan Mercantile of Hong Kong and Regan Mercantile of New York. This vindicates Everiss’s original allegations of Evony being connected to Chinese gold farming outfits—and also makes the center of many of his accusations that Evony meant to quash as being “libelous.” However, libel must be untrue and it seems that our heroic video-game blogger happens to have the truth on his side.

More amusing, Evony decided to bring their lawsuit against the UK blogger in Australia leading to accusations of “libel tourism”—a terrible behavior where a company sues someone in another country with weaker libel laws than where the libel occurred. Unfortunately for Evony, however, their pulling out of the case now means that they still owe a bunch of money: about A$80,000 by 12 April, 2011. If they fail to pay this, the case will begin again. Everiss expects that he and his team should be able to win a summary judgment before then, which would bring the hammer down on Evony and force them to pay Everiss’s legal costs in the matter (as they’ve also racked up for him.)

The crux of the “libel tourism” in this case happens to be because neither Evony nor Everiss happens to be from Australia. Everiss lives and works in the UK and Evony is registered in the US. So it looks a bit strange that they would reach out to a totally different country in order to forward this case.

Link, via The Guardian UK.

And then people get stupid.

Meanwhile, in Australia, a member of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre is using the reconfirmed existence of Rapelay as a means to justify Internet filtering for the whole country, according to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald. Karen Willis “absolutely” believes in Internet filtering and told the paper, “While I don’t think that playing games causes people to go out and do things, what it can do for those who may already have that preclusion is further break down social barriers to them taking that action.”

Australia, already known for idiot-as-she-goes approaches to censorship couldn’t possibly pass up a boatload of sensationalism to promote an approach to making moral decisions for their own population on what expression they should be able to access. The above quote, of course, comes from a propaganda source who don’t need to back up their bias; but due to their poorly constructed media rating system can basically ban anything they want for any reason by not rating it.

Not to be left out, Argentina decided to take the bait (ignoring already present laws that ban this type of game) in order to play the censor card as well.

Argentina’s Ministry of Justice called RapeLay (translated) a “clear vindication of the crimes of sexual abuse, violation, against sexual integrity and discrimination against the women,” and warned the populace that the sale or commercialization of games featuring explicit sexual activities is in direct opposition to article 128 of Argentina’s penal code. Those who break such laws are subject to prison terms ranging from six months to four years.

Attorney General Julio Alak said that the country is taking steps to ensure that the game cannot enter the country. He also warned ISPs that they could incur sanctions for allowing access to the game online.

Because ISPs should police what other people access and think.

Censorship promotes a sense of ignorance, a taboo to awareness that violates a deeper strain of human dignity than even this video game can hope to touch. Promoting awareness of sexual assault, rape, and what it can do to people would be a far more reaching and enduring effect than censoring this video game can ever do. It’s a cheap, easy, and foolish solution to a problem of social discourse better resolved by actually addressing the human condition.

In a few months this game might be forgotten, there are thousands to take its place no doubt, but the cultural unconscious of those who drink the poison of censorship won’t take away a message about approaching human dignity, they’ll end up with further claws of taboo and inability to access the questions.

Think: Educate; not retaliate.

Link, via Gamepolitics.

The board has refused to give a classification to Left 4 Dead 2.

Features edited out to meet the board’s arbitrary standards include, “depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment.”

Now that dead people have been thoroughly scrubbed out of a BRAIN EATING ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE WHERE THE DEAD RISE TO FEAST ON THE LIVING (ahem), the Australian ratings board has given Left 4 Dead 2 a passing score.

Read more about how censorship in foreign countries affects your life here.