As you may or may not know, I live in Australia. What you probably do know is that our government doesn't exactly love violent video games. As is constantly ridiculed by the rest of the world, quite a few games have either been banned or censored here in the last decade or two. In wake of the recent outrage over the banning of the new Mortal Kombat in Australia, I've decided to talk about our video game laws and why we don't have an R18+ rating. These are the ratings used for television shows and movies here in Australia:
Suitable for all audiences.
Parental guidance recommended for young audiences.
Recommended for mature audiences.
Restricted to ages 15 and over.
Restricted to ages 18 and over.
The problem is that we don't actually HAVE an R18+ rating for video games, because back when squishing goombas was as violent as it got, who would've thought we'd need one? If a video game is violent enough to be rated R18, it is banned in Australia. Of course, this issue has garnered a lot of debate over the years, but nothing has been done about it yet.
Unfortunately, the Attorney-General for every state has to vote yes on issues like these, and the Attorney-General for NSW, Michael Atkinson, decided to vote no, thereby denying us the chance to finally grow up. His reason was basically "violent video games are bad for children". Remind you of anyone? What he and is clueless colleagues don't seem to realize is that a lot of games that SHOULD be rated R18 are being rated MA15 and are therefore accessible to children under the age of 18. An adult is way more likely to buy a child Grand Theft Auto IV if they see it has an MA15 classification rather than a R18 classification (as it does in every other country). Most adults here either decide to import their games from other countries or simply pirate them from the internet.
Perhaps the worst part is the Classification Board's terrible inconsistencies in how they rate games. Gears of War 2, a game in which you can chainsaw people in half, and in one part of the game swim through a pool of blood, was given an MA15+ rating, whereas Left 4 Dead 2 was banned (and later censored) for far less. GTA IV was originally supposed to be censored, but when Rockstar sent the Classification Board an uncensored version of the PC version it was given the all clear. Taking this as a sign that the original game was fine after all, they then released a patch allowing both console versions to be completely uncensored. Aliens vs Predators was another game that faced being banned, until Sega simply appealed the ban, causing the board to change their minds for apparently no reason at all.
EB Games even started a nation-wide petition for the approval of an R18+ rating, called "Grow Up Australia", which gained over 16,000 petitions, contributing to the 58,487 total petitions to the government. Even with all that support it's still not decided whether we WILL get an R18+ rating for video games or not. The deadline has been set for July this year and the politician who replaced Michael Atkinson seems to support the vote. Thankfully, our Home Affairs minister, Brendan O'Connor, is also pro-R18 rating and had this to say about the issue: “We’re becoming the laughing stock of the developed world, where we’re the only country that doesn’t have an R18 classification level for video games." Unfortunately, even if the Attorney-General's DO unanimously decide to support the new rating, it will be too late for games like Left 4 Dead 2, Manhunt and Mortal Kombat.
