Media Release
For release: Wednesday May 25, 2011
The draft Guidelines for the Classification of Computer Games are contrary to the interests of parents and their children, the Australian Christian Lobby has said.
The draft guidelines, released by the Minister for Justice Brendan O’Connor today, would allow almost precisely the same guidelines for R18+ films to apply to computer games, allowing games with a ‘high’ impact to be legal in Australia for the first time.
“Not only is this proposal contrary to the claim that the introduction of an R18+ category for computer games would protect children by merely relocating existing MA15+ games to a new R18+ category, it would inevitably open the Australian hire and sale markets to a higher level of graphically violent and sexually explicit interactive games,” ACL’s chief of staff Lyle Shelton said.
“For the very first time, computer games with sexual activity that may be ‘realistically simulated’, and games with ‘virtually’ no restrictions on language and the treatment of themes such as racism and suicide, would be legal in Australia according to the draft guidelines.
“Allowing the almost exact same guidelines that caused the film ‘Salo’ to be legally available for sale in Australia under the R18+ category to also apply to computer games is especially troubling given the Director of the Classification Board, Mr Donald McDonald, justified that decision in Senate estimates hearings by saying that ‘Simulated paedophilia could be acceptable in the context of a particular film’.
“The even remote possibility of such content becoming legal in interactive form is truly frightening.”
Mr Shelton questioned how allowing games with higher impact to be legally available in Australia would ‘provide safeguards to restrict the availability of material that is unsuitable for children’ or remove ‘unsuitable material from children and teenagers’, as claimed.
“Research shows that American children regularly play ‘adult games’, despite the official rating.
“There is little to suggest Australian children would not also be able to access such games regardless of their rating, thereby contradicting the suggestion that welfare of children was the key motivator for liberalising the classification of computer games.”
Even gaming interests were now honestly re-evaluating the veracity of supposed benefits to children of an R18+ rating:
“Of course, protecting children is a main concern for us. But he [WA MP Nick Goiran] does have a small point. Somewhere along the line, we switched our main message from “Adults should be able to play what they want” to the more sellable “Children will be better protected with this new rating.”
“It’s time to stop pretending an R18+ rating for computer games is a child protection measure,” said Mr Shelton.
“There is little to suggest Australian children would not also be able to access such games regardless of their rating, thereby contradicting the suggestion that welfare of children was the key motivator for liberalising the classification of computer games.”
Kids get a hold of violent video games because their parents *puchase* them. How can you blame game developers (and effectively punish adult gamers everywhere) when it’s the parents who consistently disregard the ratings system already in place?
Nick from the ABC here. I’m sorry, but What you are saying is just plain false. With an R18 rating there will likely be two games that are affected. Just two. Left 4 Dead 2 and Mortal Kombat 9.
Both of these games are downright lame in comparison to hundreds of other games that have been classified MA15+ in Australia… yet were classified for adults only in the rest of the world.
L.A. Noire is the latest. No child should be anywhere near that. The same goes for Call of Duty. But these great games are being passed as MA15 in Australia purely because we don’t have R18. As such many parents equate them with The similarly-rated James Bond movies.
Seriously, if you want to stop kids playing inappropriate games you should support R18.
If I am wrong please name any one single game that would be here because of R18 that is worse than anything else on the MA15 market. There are only five violent games from the past five years that haven’t made it to Australia. That’s hardly a flood.
Am happy to discuss this more with you.
Nick, not according to Geordie Guy – ‘online rights campaigner’:
“A lot of people like myself, other rights campaigners, the gaming industry, hoped that a lot of the games that get banned in Australia that are available for sale in New Zealand, the UK, the US wouldn’t be banned any more under this system, but it really does look like a lot of the games that were in the MA category before will be pushed up up into the R category, so we really won’t see adults being able to play games for adults . . .
“Each year there’s about three or four that are big blockbuster games that are available in every other country but Australia.”
http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/-/watch/25348853/video-game-reforms/
“For the very first time, computer games with sexual activity that may be ‘realistically simulated’, and games with ‘virtually’ no restrictions on language and the treatment of themes such as racism and suicide, would be legal in Australia according to the draft guidelines.”
It confuses me where you think such titles will come from. These games aren’t availble now, even in other countries that do have an R18+ rating, what makes you think Australia (that represents about extremely small amount of the video game market in the world) having R18+ rating would change that?
Hi,
I work for a leading video game seller in Australia.
“There is little to suggest Australian children would not also be able to access such games regardless of their rating, thereby contradicting the suggestion that welfare of children was the key motivator for liberalising the classification of computer games.”
This is completely false. I am legally required to ask for photo and age ID from anyone who tries to purchase a MA15+ restricted title, and under the proposed guidelines I would have to also ask for ID to sell someone a R18+ restricted title.
So I suggest that children that would have access to R18+ titles is the the fault of bad parenting and not that of the video game.
Instead of fighting these ratings changes, you should be putting your efforts into educating parents on the new rating system (or even the old one if this one does not pass) so they can protect their children properly.
Hi Ben,
Sorry for the late reply but thanks very much for getting back to me. Geordie isn’t being entirely accurate there. Rather than there being “four or five” games being banned a year, it’s more like two every three years. He also says, “many of the games being banned…” which suggests that there are many games being banned. There are not.
In reality the games that ARE banned are not a patch on what’s already being passed as MA15. People might point at the violent impact in those games and they’d be right. But I’d point at the very adult themes in existing MA15 games (swearing, sex, violence, gangland, drugs, prostitutes, crime, war) and say that’s FAR worse. I play many of these games. It’s part of my job.
For all the hysteria around the tiny amount of games that actually do get banned, there are over 80 games per year that get passed MA15 in Australia which are rated ‘adults only’ in the rest of the world. That’s the real travesty. People can say that they SHOULD be banned all they want. But the liklihood of Call of Duty being banned (when the last two versions are above Thriller, Titanic and Avatar in the all-time highest-selling media charts) are zero. As such parents see a similar rating on Call of Duty as they do lesser games like Halo and the James Bond movies and let them play them. I know this because my 8-year-old son has many mates who wax-lyrical about playing totally inappropriate games. The current rating system is failing them horribly.
The notion that R18 will mean that sexual and drug filled games are suddenly going to appear is also false. The category might allow for them, but that doesn’t mean they’re suddenly going to get made.
The world of high-production value video games is larger than Hollywood. They’ve not been waiting for Australia to remove it’s silly rating system before embarking on releasing games like this. We’re a very minor territory commercially. Such games simply aren’t suddenly going to appear. None have been banned in the last five years (or appeared in other Western countries) anyway. They are not suddenly going to get made.
Much of the rebellion against the ACL viewpoint revolves around, “how dare you tell us what to do”. Your viewpoint seems to be, “Think of the children”.
I’m leaving all of that aside and staying with the facts: “By not having an R18 category, the overwhelming-majority of adults-only games are being passed as MA15 in Australia. Furthermore, there is no history of any sexual and drug-use related games appearing in other Western countries and not in Australia, nor is there any suggestion that there will be.”
I hope I’ve explained all this correctly. Am happy to discuss anything further with you.
Best regards,
Nick
Jonathan – thanks for your comment
I remember when I was a kid we were easily able to access MA15+ games. We shared, burnt, used fake ID’s, got older kids to get them for us… we always found a way. I asked the question to a bunch of 14 year olds recently as to whether they thought they would be able to get their hands on R18+ games if they came in. The answer was “Definately!”
Nick – Sorry, Ben is away
You are right in that a lot of these games are slipping into the MA15+ rating that shouldn’t be there. Isn’t this however an argument to fix the current guidelines rather than extending them? If this is common practice imagine what might slip into the R18+ rating! Your are correct in that Call of Duty will never be blocked due to its popularity, but surely editing it to remove the airport scene for example would be a reasonable way to fit it into MA15+.
We agree that the Classification system is failing. However, your line at the end regarding there is “no suggestion of sexual games coming in” is not well researched. There is now clearly a boom in pornographic games available, even if they are not available on the consoles. The Sex Party have indicated that they are supportive of an R18+ rating for exactly this reason.
Every year I play games I see them getting more realistic, more violent, pushing all sorts of boundaries, and kids under 10 playing them. As a gamer I am willing to sacrifice my right to play sexual and overly violent games in order to support parents in protecting the vulnerable and easily influenced of our society. I am surprised more gamers aren’t willing to do the same.
First, let me start by saying that you need to read my entire post before you delete it.
I don’t care if you delete it, just read the whole thing first.
I’m a Christian, just like you, and I want what’s best for this country.
Let me start by saying:
You don’t understand what your talking about.
Pretty much every single argument that you have ever had on this issue has been based on assumptions. You keep saying things like:
“Not only is this proposal contrary to the claim that the introduction of an R18+ category for computer games would protect children by merely relocating existing MA15+ games to a new R18+ category, it would inevitably open the Australian hire and sale markets to a higher level of graphically violent and sexually explicit interactive games,”
Where is your proof on this? You are basing that on a guess. You should look up how many games a year actually get banned due to a lack
of an R rating. It’s only like two or three games, not a flood.
You guys are just trying to do the right thing. You’re trying to protect children from bad content. I’m all for that, I think it’s a good cause.
The thing is, an R rating WOULD help protect children from bad content.
And you want to know my proof on this?
I’m 15 years old and I play these games!
If you want to stop teenagers like me from getting explicit, violent, sexual games, then you should be PRO R18!
The only reason we don’t have one yet is completely due to you. If you told the government that you were Pro R18, we would probably get the rating in about a week.
You need to take a step back and completely reconsider this debate, because you have it totally backwards. At the very least, stop making arguments based on assumptions.
Thank you for reading the entire post… you may delete in now if you want.
Hi Cooper. Thanks for your considered comment. ACL does not believe that an R rating would protect children from bad content because even though there might be restrictions in shops on who can purchase a particular game, the truth is children will access these games regardless of the restrictions. A plain reading of the draft guidelines shows that a higher level of content than is currently legal would become legal were the guidelines to be agreed upon. Allowing a higher level of content to be more readily available would not protect children.