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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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.