It’s been in the news today but I thought this topic was worth mentioning. I’ve also written about this in the past, specifically:
- R18+ Video Games – One Step Closer
- R18+ Computer Games Classification – Its Time Will Come
- Draft R18+ Guidelines for Computer Games Released
Today, a bill was introduced into Federal Parliament to create a new R18+ category for video games. This classification has existed for films for quite some time but games that exceeded the MA15+ category were refused classification and became unsuitable for sale in Australia. Such examples include:
- Left 4 Dead 2 (which was later modified and granted the MA15+ classification),
- Mortal Kombat 9 (refused classification and banned from sale).
If this bill manages to get through Parliament unscathed then we can expect this classification to take effect from January 2013. This would also be a victory for common sense in my eyes in amongst the malarkey going on in Australian politics at the moment.
One thing that we should remember is the fact that these classification is designed to prevent minors from gaining access to R18+ content from retail channels. Such a rating in addition to the other ratings can be helpful to adults to assess and determine the suitability of content for their kids while allowing gaming adults to access such content if they so desire.
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