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

Posted by samzenpus on from the watch-how-you-play dept.

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."

8 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Irony by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Irony by RivenAleem · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Irony by quintesse · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Irony by awrowe · · Score: 4, Funny

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

      --
      A.I. Research. The peculiar science in which we know the question and we know the answer, but can't show the working
    4. Re:Irony by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

  2. Oh no! 18+ by ciderbrew · · Score: 4, Funny

    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..

  3. Where's Rockstar? by metalmaster · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  4. The best bit of this... by RogueyWon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.