In a move sure to chap the ass of former South Australia Attorney General Michael Atkinson, the Aussie federal cabinet has approved the adoption of an R18+ classification for games down under, effectively eliminating the tacit ban on any games deemed unsuitable for an R15+ – formerly the highest rating.
This still has to be approved by Australian states and territories, and presumably adopted by Parliament as well, but it’s a step in the right direction. Kind of.
The Australian government makes it pretty clear they’re not doing this to open the country’s shores to mature-rated games, so much as to punish those who allow games rated 15+ to kids of that age, when some of said games should have carried an 18+ rating… but didn’t because there wasn’t one.
Games that are outright banned in Australia will remain that way, according to Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor. That’s also a sticky subject, because Australia’s method of banning stuff so far has simply been to refuse it classification. Lots of violent games have been refused classification in Australia, making it illegal to sell them (scroll the comments yonder to see an informal study conducted by reader Jarrod on unclassified games available through Steam in Australia). But of those games, practically none are ban-worthy. They’re violent, like Fallout 3, and worthless, like Postal 2, but in general they’re pretty innocuous titles. I mean, really, in a world where every Halloween sees the release of a new Saw movie, the ability to club a man with a nine iron and knock his head clean off (as I did just last night in New Vegas!) really isn’t that horrifying a concept.
Personally I think most of the “banned” games will start to trickle into Australia, rated suitably at R18+. Proponents of the new rating’s key argument – that there are people over 18 who should have a right to choose their own entertainment – has always held water. And while Australia is a surprisingly conservative place in many ways, it’s a free country and shouldn’t be subject to tiered freedom of expression.
We’ll be seeing, in weeks and months to come, what the adoption of this rating (if it is adopted) will mean for our friends in Oz. With luck, they’ll finally have a chance to enjoy some classic, if bloody and/or sexy, games.
Email the author of this post at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
I haven’t been following this as much as I should be – my gaming libido on hold while my PS3 is in storage. (I believe the previous rating was either MA15+, as opposed to R15+ in line with our movie ratings, but I could be mistaken.)
Kotaku Australia’s Seamus appeared on one of our ‘newsie’ breakfast shows about this (http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/12/ready-kotaku-on-sunrise/). Seamus says that only 13 games have been previously banned in Australia, and even with an R18+ rating, only about half would make it in, which is pretty interesting.
Also, freedom of expression (freedom of speech) is not a protected right here as it is in the US, but a lot of Aussies here take it for granted.
What is your PS3 doing in storage, Jarrod? Were you invaded by Huntsman Spiders?
Just an interim thing, nothing more sinister than that. Until the tenants move out of my house, I’m sharing another with other people, and they don’t want anything extraneous hooked up to their tv.
I looked into hooking up the PS3 to my PC monitor, but apparently you need a PC monitor with HDCP – which wasn’t really around when I bought mine. When I start work again, I might look at getting a new monitor!
Huntsmen are nice. No true Aussie is really afraid of huntsmem, they’re harmless. Only good for being used as extras in Arachnaphobia. We’re pretty blase about redback spiders too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redback_spider), although we might get a bit squeemish around Funnel Web spiders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_funnel-web_spider).
‘Invaded’ by funnel webs = muchos fear.
I’m not going to discuss Australian spiders with you, Jarrod. I won’t get drawn into it.
Yes, I get it, you Aussies are all tough because you have spiders the size of orangutans. Yes, spiders make me scream (reason #626,264,845 that Steerpike is unpopular with the ladies).
But do you have BEARS? You do not. Bears are fucking killing machines. We have bears.
Koalas don’t count. They’re marsupials.
We have Drop Bears, more deadly.
Looks like the R18+ rating has stalled, the Attorney General for Western Australia delaying his support until discussions with his cabinet. I’m not sure how long the delay will be for, but I doubt he’ll make the decision today, and the Attorney Generals only get together at particular times etc. (http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/12/ready-democracy-inaction/)