Slashdot Mirror
Australian R18 Games Rating Gets Gov't Support
dotarray writes "Even with the news last week that an Australian Government study found no conclusive link between video games and violence, it's still a little surprising that the federal Labor government has announced today that they support the move for an adult R18+ rating for video games in that country."
One of the criticisms made against the publicized "tell us if you want this" survey was that the results were swayed by an interested party (gamers). Gee, really, you ask people if people want something, and the people who want it are the ones who answer? And they got a LOT of answers, meaning there are a LOT of interested gamers. But the results were effectively thrown out, on claims of bias. Bias towards the answer the people running the survey didn't want, I say.
The surprise comes from the government actually acting in line with the study, instead of sticking its fingers in its ears, and legislating its preconceived notions anyway.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Why is this surprising?
The only thing stopping R18 was Michael Atkinson, Atkinson has since lost his position as Attorney General. The other six voted yes last time and the new AG for South Australia has voiced his support for the R18+ argument since his appointment. We are just waiting for the next time the AG's bring this up for debate. Most of Labor's backbenchers supported the introduction of R18+ for games.
The Labor government, in fact both parties lost a lot of votes to minor parties and independents in the last federal election, a fairly clear message that people wanted the major parties to be punished. In Atkinson's electorate of Croydon, there was a 15.6% swing against Atkinson in what was considered one of Labor's safest seats in South Australia, this was almost twice the average swing against Labor in SA (7.8%). Labor leader Mike Rand had the perfect opportunity to "resign" Atkinson from the position of Attorney General at that point.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Do you mean the secret cabal that oversees ratings in Australia? That the members of the ratings board are secret? That the guidelines they use to determine classification are secret? That their review decisions are secret?
Or are you just pissed that they make decisions without asking you?
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Is that Wal-mart is against AO. Some other retailers are too, but Wal-mart is the biggest. Basically, some retailers refuse to sell AO rated games, or NC-17 rated movies. I'm not talking just porn, I'm talking anything with it. Remember that in both cases the ratings are just the highest ones. They can be granted for all kinds of reasons.
Well retail sales are still the biggest way you sell games. Online is growing fast, but it is still like 4-5:1 retail to online (don't believe the surveys, they suffer from selection bias, ask a publisher). So publishers have to make sure the games can go on the shelves and THAT means M rating or less. That's why the care. If the stores would start stocking AO, then sure you'd see more AO games.
The movie industry sneaks around that to an extent with "unrated" movies. Remember that currently movie and game ratings are voluntary. They are non-profit orgs that you submit your works to and they rate and then give you a license to print the rating on your product. In the case of movies, they don't have to worry about the government mandating it. They aren't a popular target anymore and they've bought off plenty of congress. However games still have to worry. Government regulation has been proposed numerous times.
So what they can do with movies is just have a cut that they do not submit for ratings. They sell this unrated version then, and retailers will stock it. Any time you see an "unrated" movie, what it means is that version was the version they wanted, but would have gotten a higher rating so they made cuts. Thus in the case of an R rated movie, the unrated version would be NC-17. However they simply don't have it rated and sell it that way.
Now as for Australia. The problem is their ratings are more restrictive. Games that get an M in the US are refused classification in Australia because they don't meet the standard for MA15+. The reasons are of course just different cultures, but also different ratings levels. The ESRB works a lot like the MPAA in that it goes from Teen rating, which is roughly for 13+ like PG-13 to an M rating, which is 17+ and is like an R rating. Australia has MA15+ which is higher than Teen, but nothing above that.
So you find some M titles form the US are ok, they get MA15+, those are often the ones that get 16 from PEGI (the EU group). However others get banned, generally the ones that get 18 from PEGI, and have to be cut down to be sold in Australia. This is a problem as it delays release dates and increases costs.
What it comes down to is currently the US market is what matters the most. It is extremely large and profitable, and also a large number of development houses are US based. So when a game is being rated, US ratings are the ones that matter. If they have to scale it back to get an M rating (or perhaps further, some games are targeted at a wider market) it will be. If the Aussie ratings board doesn't like it, tough shit. May be some time later, if ever, that they get around to making a cut down version for that market. They won't design with it in mind.
So I would imagine this rating will not be a problem, much like the PEGI 18 rating. There are numerous 18 games out there (Bioshock is one that comes to mind).