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Bill Introduced To Ban Sale of MA15+ Games To Anyone Under 18 in SA
dotarray writes "The introduction of an R18+ rating for video games into Australia has been designed to bring game classification in line with the current system in place for films and other media. One state, however, would like to widen that gap."
This is being billed (by John Rau's office) as a saner approach than eliminating the MA15+ rating entirely.
Why is there still political uproar over games after all these years? It may have been understandable in the mid-1990s when Doom and Mortal Kombat were portraying a level of violence people hadn't seen in games before in such detail, but that time has passed without effect, and the attention given to games today feels disproportionate. It's just an easy, uncontroversial issue for politicians to pick up in order to appeal to family-first voters.
Is there a black market for R18+ games? Can you just torrent them?
Surely Aussies don't just accept that the games are censored.
OK so they are going to ban the sale of games rated as suitable for 15 year olds to anyone who is under 18... wait... WHAT? So a 15 16 or 17 year old can't buy a game rated for 15 years or older????
Governments aren't exactly renowned for their counting and accounting skills. It's like they try to look stupid to win the "I don't care 'bout that 'math[s]' shit" vote.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
You are correct, sir. However, it's not like there is any hard science behind choosing 15 instead of 18 (or 16, 17 or 78).
What?
Therefore, my intention is that the South Australian legislation will prevent the sale of MA15+ games to minors. This move will give parents greater certainty about the appropriateness of games for their children.
From what I gather, the aim is to make parents/guardians responsible for the content they are viewing/playing, and forcing them (or anyone over 18) to be there at the time of purchase.
However, this goes against the description of the MA15+ rating...
[From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Classification_Board ]
MA15+ (Mature Accompanied for those under 15) - Persons under said age may only legally purchase, rent, exhibit or view MA15+ rated content under the supervision of an adult guardian. The exhibition of these films to people under the age of 15 years who are not supervised by an adult guardian is a criminal offence. Recommended for 14-15+.
Yes, I am a typical American and all I know about Australia I learned from the Simpsons and Crocodile Dundee... what is South Australia?
Is Australia two continents? I am pretty sure it isn't, but the public school system is so bad here, I wouldn't be surprised if I never learned about that.
Actual South Australian here - This is actually A Good Thing.
For about 15-20 years our ratings have been E - Exempt, G - for general exhibition, PG - Parental guidance, M15+, MA15+ and R18+ and X18+.
This removes the bullshit rating of ma15 plus, basically it's an M with 'a bit more but not quite an R'.
There hasn't been an R18 for games, so this is where they were all shoehorned, into this ma15+ category.
More info - see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Classification_Board#Film_and_video_game_classifications
...that thinks we shouldn't be asking the state with the City of Churches how to protect children.
It's a bit like putting Hunter S. Thompson in charge of the uppers.
Does that mean Austrailians are all 3 years younger than the rest of us?
Wrong government. The reason it's taken over a decade to sort out ratings on games one way or another is due to State governments playing petty politics to get a cheap "for the children" vote. If the games were grouped with films and handled at a Federal level this would have been over one way or another well over a decade ago. Idiots have jumped in to try to prove they are relevant and can "protect the kiddies" even though all they can really do is gum up the works to the detriment of anyone involved with computer games. Almost immediately after each state election some idiot from the new bunch decides to get some cheap points media coverage by ranting about video games and how he's going to save the kiddies. Give it a month or two and we'll hear similar rubbish from Queensland.
Consider that it's taken over a decade to do no more than rubber stamp the film classifications with a search and replace between "film" and "game" and you'll see what I mean. A trivial issue has turned into a little bit of an international embarrassment.
What exactly are the rights of a minor? Both relative to their parent/guardian, and to what the state can authorize/restrict?
This whole issue is completely retarded.
Just politicians demonstrating how irrelevant and out-of-touch with they are with society in general...
Imagine if they where trying to ban sales of a board game, or books? Talk about inappropriate usage of public funds!
Also, how ironic that they would target an age group of people who are just about to make the first political decision/vote in there life; Which way do you think they'll vote. First impression count much for you?
And who is this supposed to be scoring points for? Could it be that there is an ulterior motive; history has showed us that's a slippery and dangerous path...
kids should not be able to buy content that is violent, graphic, has sex (not often) and mature themes. Theaters have been doing it for years. the target market for video games is kids, I am sure that had nothing to do with a lax rating system.
Internationally, "SA" usually refers to South Africa, not South Australia.
I thought it usually referred to South America.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Let's rate sociopoltical issues by IQ/Intellectual Age, thereby preventing politicians at large from voicing any opinions/legislation about topics for which they are ignorant, ill informed or simply pandering for votes.
This might look like a good thing, but they're basically trying to undo the R18+ reforms, by making MA15+ the same as R18+. As many have pointed out, it will achieve nothing and add complication for retailers and buyers. Why can't we just accept the classifications boards definitions, like the rest of the states.
Under the legislation, movies like the Saw franchise can be seen by minors, but games like GTA and Mortal combat can't be played.
This is just typical Adelaide politics. We endured the idiot Michael Atkinson with his overly conservative views, holding Australian to ransom over game classification reform. He made us look like a joke for too many years. Now we have to suffer another idiot trying to do the same, pandering to a fringe group of religious do-gooders/ nuts-cases, that are hell bent on making this state a retirement village. We all bitch about Adelaide getting a bad rap, but it's this kind of crap that instils SA's backwater reputation.
Area51 - We are watching...
Indeed.
Why shouldn't games have this uproar? Movies, music, books and comics/strips/manga have had and often continue to have the same response. Rap anyone? Strips (European comics) were considered to rot the minds of youths (only the good ones) before they became accepted as an art in their own right (only the boring ones).
Doom and Mortal combat had their opposition but that doesn't mean that was done and over with. By that logic, after people stopped having a heart attack of Elvis Presley's hip movements, all other music forms should have come and gone without a problem.
And all of this is part of democracy, the rule of the majority, whether you like what the majority votes for or not. To often people think that because they approve of something that should end the public debate. And then those same people are outraged others think EXACTLY the same but with an opposing view.
Democracy is a constantly moving, never finished project where people who really don't like each other very much try to figure out how to get the other to live by their standards.
Don't forget, if you want games to go unrated, you are just as much forcing YOUR view on others, as those who want to rate games. And unless you are sure you have an easy majority, you better be a little bit more mature about it then calling the other side a bunch of booger heads.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Only if you live in a place where you need to actually refer to South Africa often enough to need an acronym for it. That'd be like complaining that WA refers to Washington state in America instead of Western Australia. Or that CA can be California (state code), or Canada (country code). All depends on where you are.
But if you really want to get pedantic, SA (or technically, AU-SA) is the official state code for South Australia under ISO 3166-2. South Africa is ZA.
Internationally, "SA" usually refers to South Africa, not South Australia.
According to Google's "I feel lucky", SA refers to Sexaholics Anonymous
Or maybe Google has just profiled me and I should feel really embarrassed.
[Rent This Space]
A rating of 15+ or 18+ is not prohibition, kids. It just means you should take your parents to the shop to buy you that 15+ or 18+ game. If they buy it for you, no government is going to stop you from blowing some virtual guy's head off.
IOW. Move along.
I thought it referred to San Andreas.
Banning game sales of MA15+ games to 18 year olds... either simple math ain't simple or there's something I'm missing here, because last time I checked: 16 || 17 > 15. (And yes, before anyone says anything, I did read the article).
Something Awful, actually.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Is that still popular? When they banned anything regarding 'adult' works, it seemed to had lost it's community (and I wasn't even there for the adult works at the time).
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.