Australia Approves Final R18+ Gaming Guidelines

dotarray writes "Despite stories suggesting that a change to the Australian ratings system may be as far as two years away, the Federal Minister for Home Affairs has announced that each Australian state and territory has signed off on the final guidelines required for the introduction of an adult R18+ classification Down Under."

Comments

Its been a long time coming

[Wolfling1]

As one of the first people to start a statewide petition to support an R18+ rating for games, I can say that its taken a long time to reach this point, and its not over yet. This is a really encouraging step in the right direction.

What is particularly interesting about it is that it highlights the disparaity between the speed that technology moves, and the speed that our lawmakers move.

I believe we may be an entire generation away from a government of technology-savvy lawmakers.

Re:Its been a long time coming

[mjwx]

Censorship is never a solution. Soviet Union made owning a photo of an erected penis a criminal offense. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Soviet society was plagued with sexual maniacs like Chikatilo.

Meanwhile, the US never had a sexual predators and maniacs like Berkowitz, Gacy, Bundy, Gein, amongst others.

Your point that censorship never works is valid, but your example is horribly flawed. I read the wikipedia article on Chikatilo and one thing immediately stuck out at me, he had the same hallmarks in his childhood as western serial killers. Vicious parents (beatings et al.), early fascination with fire and death, above average intelligence, bullied and above all else, serious sexual problems in adolescence. It strikes me that Chikatilo would have been a serial killer in almost any society, communism had little to do with it, he almost fits the textbook conditions that created most killers in the west.

Re:What guidelines?

[Zaphod The 42nd]

Apparently you don't know about the problems with video games down under. Many are outright banned right now as they do not meet the requirements for the Australian teen rating (13?) and thus cannot be sold, and some of it makes no sense. Some violent games get through, some barely-violent games get banned. Many then end up resorting to piracy, so then the games industry says "oh, its just pirates there, we won't bother" and it just cycles around and around. (Like Russia, which has been blown off as full of pirates, so nobody localizes for Russia, so there are more pirates... Gabe Newell just did an interview where he addressed it and they found that if they did proper releases in Russia, their sales were 3-5x what people expected).

The very thought that content would have to be approved before getting sold to adults is chilling.

yeah, Orwell thought it was scary too. :) In all seriousness though, censorship is a problem.

Re:What guidelines?

[Zaphod The 42nd]

If it wasn't illegal to buy snuff films, they'd be widely purchased and a market created for such

Actually, I just read an article, I think it was by BBC, that said that after doing much research, their conclusion was there is no such thing as a snuff film, nobody has actually made a snuff film, and there is no market for snuff films. Its just too difficult / costly to murder people for entertainment as opposed to doing fiction.

SOMETIMES the world isn't as bad as it seems. :P

Drug incentives still not allowed

[subanark]

In the article for R 18+ classifications:
Drug use related to incentives and rewards is not permitted.

Depending on how 'drug' is defined, a game could be banned if using apsrin was part of the plot to recover some ailment.
If this was only related to controlled substances, then a fictional drug could be used instead without problem, making the rule near useless.

Re:What guidelines?

[lgw]

You obviously have never a snuff film then because they are out there

Did you know, that when you see a character die in a movie, the actor didn't actually die? Strange but true.

People seem to forget that the same array of special effects and clever editing are available to adult film producers, if used (far) less often due to expense.