Game Receives First R18+ "Adults Only" Classification In Australia

angry tapir writes "Australia's Classification Board today announced the first video game to receive the new R18+ classification which came into effect at the start of 2013, indicating the title is to be sold only to adults. Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, developed by Team Ninja, is published by Nintendo for the company's new Wii U console. The R18+ classification was created after a long campaign by gamers and game publishers. Previously games had a maximum rating of MA, and titles that didn't meet the criteria had to be reworked or not released in Australia."

Comments

Irony

[thegarbz]

The family friendly console developer is the first to release a game that receives an R18+ rating. This is the very definition of irony.

Re:Irony

[RivenAleem]

I don't know. I usually equate doing something ironic with negativity, as if Nintendo was being hypocritical. You forget (or ignore) that when 2 people get married, they become a family. There does not need to be kids. And the saying "Fun for all the family!" should also include people over the age of 18, otherwise it's just "Fun for the younger children!"

The average age of console gamers is over 18.

Re:Irony

[quintesse]

Irony definitely doesn't need to be negative (and often isn't), are you maybe confusing it with sarcasm? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

"incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result."

So in this case, of all the publishers, Nintendo is the last you'd expect to apply for this rating exactly because they're known for their family-friendly games (implying they wouldn't need 18+ ratings) , hence the irony.

Re:Irony

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Or, irony will be that kids want to get their hands on this game now . . . just because it has an R18+ rating. Doing anything that is illegal or a sin is more fun. Like, sex before you are married, sneaking into a movie with an adult rating, buying beer when you are under aged, etc.

The R18+ sticker is a big red, blinking "Buy Me!" sticker on the box for kids.

Re:Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, it's the same console developer that approved Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Re:Irony

[jamesh]

Or, irony will be that kids want to get their hands on this game now . . . just because it has an R18+ rating. Doing anything that is illegal or a sin is more fun. Like, sex before you are married, sneaking into a movie with an adult rating, buying beer when you are under aged, etc.

The R18+ sticker is a big red, blinking "Buy Me!" sticker on the box for kids.

Like supplying alcohol to a minor, I assume there are enforceable penalties for supplying a minor with an R18+ game (it's my country, but i'm too lazy to rtfa).

Still... it's not the publishers problem if an outlet sells a game to a minor. They still get the money, which is more than the nothing they would have received if the kid had just downloaded the game instead (which they probably will anyway).

Re:Irony

[awrowe]

Or, irony is thinking that sex will happen more often after marriage.

Re:Irony

[Gadget_Guy]

But this is exactly what the advocates of the R18+ rating system promised would happen. They said that this would actually be better for the children because there were games being misrated because they no alternative. This is not an unforseen consequence or the wowsers being proven right.

Re:Irony

[MaWeiTao]

I don't think there's any ambiguity to the term "fun for the family". Regardless of what may constitute a family I think it's very well understood that when people and companies use that expression they mean children.

There are also parents who think it's okay to expose their kids to anything and everything; people have differing opinions and degrees of responsibility. Usually, but certainly not always, the point of a term is to help offer some degree of specificity.

My big problem is that too many gamers associate "mature" with sex and graphic violence. It's maturity seen from the perspective of a teenager. I have a hard time comprehending why violence and adult should be mutually inclusive beyond the basic fact that it's what sells. People can get on their high horse about free speech, but from the perspective of developers and publishers all that matters is the revenue.

Re:Irony

[hairyfeet]

I just think its sad that Australians have been treated like infants so long by their politicians...why did they put up with that shit? As a parent just give me the same kind of info they give for a TV program "This game contains scenes of (insert violence, sex, drug references, whatever)" and let ME decide what is and is not appropriate for my boys. Its called parenting and just because some are too fucking lazy to do their damned jobs as parents does NOT mean that as an adult I shouldn't be able to play whatever kind of game that I want.

Re:Irony

[Belial6]

While the sex is worse than violence mentality is real, and generally ridiculous. It seems that most people who criticize it don't understand that there is a reasonable premise that it stems from. First, violence is something that is a natural urge pretty much from the point that a child is physically capable of exhibiting it. It is ingrained in our dna. Whereas sex is an urge that generally starts really kicking in at puberty. Thus, if exposed to other small children, violence is already a part of their lives, while sex is not.

Then there is the issue of repeatability. A 5 year old is not likely to be able to repeat the violence they see in a Terminator. They just don't have the tools. Whereas repeating the sex they see in 'Ass Blasters 12' is certainly repeatable. In fact the more extreme the violence, the less repeatable it is. The more extreme sex is, the repeatability stays about the same.

Then there is the fact that most of us consider a little violence to be better than a little sex. How many people will wrestle (play violence) with their kids. It is an activity that is generally considered a fun, happy and healthy activity. Now, how many people play sex with their kids? How many people would consider that to be a fun, happy and healthy activity?

Now, I do think that most people are way too concerned about sex in media, but I think that many peoples are way too concerned about violence in media as well. They usually are not the same people.

Re:Irony

[thegarbz]

I have no idea what makes R18+ different from MA, but I have to assume that this is not the first game deserving of R18+ rating.

It exists. That's what makes it different. Games which don't fit within a rating system get refused classification in Australia which means they are banned from retail sale. Every banned game thus far is perfectly fine under an R18+ system.

Oh no! 18+

[ciderbrew]

I've been drinking, watching porn, playing games long before I was 18. I have a Job, house, kid, pay my bills and cry myself to sleep at night like the rest of the world. Put the age to 40 and give people something to look forward to..

Re:Oh no! 18+

[fnj]

You don't know what country or US state AC resides in. In the US, even though the feds wormed their way into the States' business and coerced them all to raising the minimum age for purchasing alcohol and consuming it in public to 21 through legislation passed in 1985, there are still details which vary from state to state. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia ban underage consumption in ANY setting, even residences in family settings. Eighteen states do not ban underage CONSUMPTION at all, and the remaining seventeen states do not ban underage consumption at home.

Re:Oh no! 18+

[SternisheFan]

I just want to remind / point out to anyone reading here that alcohol is a 'drug', and it is a dangerous one. It just happens to be a legal drug. There are good reasons for these laws that prohibit young people from using alcohol. It ruins more lives than illegal drugs.

Study: Alcohol 'most harmful drug,' followed by crack and heroin By the CNN Wire Staff November 1, 2010 1:14 p.m. EDTLondon, England (CNN) -- "Alcohol ranks "most harmful" among a list of 20 drugs, beating out crack and heroin when assessed for its potential harm to the individual imbibing and harm to others, according to study results released by a British medical journal. A panel of experts from the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs weighed the physical, psychological, and social problems caused by the drugs and determined that alcohol was the most harmful overall, according to an article on the study released by The Lancet on Sunday." http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/01/alcohol.harm/index.html

Re:Oh no! 18+

[hackula]

I believe it this morning, but like everyone else on the planet, will stop believing it by about 3pm when my hangover wears off.

Re:Oh no! 18+

[tnk1]

Yes. I believe there is a religious exemption as well.

And unfortunately, you don't get very much, or church would have been a lot more popular.

Where's Rockstar?

[metalmaster]

When opening this article I half expected to read about the next installment of Grand Theft Auto or some other title riddled with adult themes.

Re:Where's Rockstar?

[jamesh]

When opening this article I half expected to read about the next installment of Grand Theft Auto or some other title riddled with adult themes.

The next GTA game will be rated G and will consist of Postman Pat going on his deliveries... until the unlock code is released.

I think the game Carmageddon did something like that. In some countries it was deemed that running people down with your car wasn't really the right thing to do so the game was released with zombies instead of people (s/skintone/green). For countries that deemed that running down zombies wasn't tasteful enough, the zombies were changed to robots. It was supposedly very easy to take the zombie version of the game and change them back into people with a bit of tweaking here and there. Not sure about the robot version.

The best bit of this...

[RogueyWon]

This is a good thing. By all accounts, the game is awful. However, it is also squarely the kind of game that wouldn't have been given a 15 rating under the old system (and hence would have been denied release). So it's an indication that the new 18 rating is an actual 18 rating, rather than an excuse to just mark games that would previously have been 15s even more harshly, while still keeping many games out of the country.

Verging on hysteria

[fnj]

You can already get into serious trouble in many or most areas carrying an obviously toy gun in school, and there have even been cases of persecuting children for making a sign of a gun with their hand, or drawing a PICTURE of a gun. Coming next: outlawing THOUGHTS of violence.

It is only the logical final step that we end up in the Firefly universe through extending social engineering to actual physical or chemical monkeying with human brains. Oh wait, we are already there, with psychotropic drugs being handed out like candy to children.

This would all have been universally considered crazy by any previous generation. It still is considered crazy by rational people.

how long before...

[hAckz0r]

How long before it goes viral on the file-sharing services?

Perhaps this is a new marketing plan? First, make it unobtainable by those that _really_ want to play it, add some more media hype with the rating system to make it even more desirable, and then hope that they eventually buy a legal copy once they are old enough to do so. Might work... well sort of. If they have a bootleg copy while under 18 they can't admit to having it, but when they are of legal age its still bootleg, so they might have to buy it so they can share with their younger friends. Somehow this doesn't sound like the rating system is doing its job, and the first game probably hasn't even hit the market yet.