Australia gets R18+ rating for video games

It’s been a long and hard battle for the Australian gamers who wanted it, but a bill has finally been passed in parliament that will put the ratings of video games on the same scale as TV and movies. In Australia, the classification for games has peaked at the MA15+ rating, practically meaning that if you were 15 years of age you could buy any game that you wanted. Parents and carers alike, were naturally unhappy with the violent and crude content featured in some of these games, and have been fighting for R18+ for some time now. In February of 2012 the Government finally took notice, and introduced a bill bidding for games to be rated similar to movies.

For a long time now, the community of online gamers has consisted of sub-15 year old gamers playing MA15+ rated games, which suggests that they have somebody else purchasing the games for them. If this is the case, the bill is practically useless because the children can get their parents to buy them the R18+ rated games anyway. The news has seen sighs of relief from older gamers, hoping that this could change the maturity levels of teammates and online gaming behavior for the good.

On the other side of the spectrum you have the younger gamers, ranging from 7 to 17 years of age. This news is unfortunate in their situation, especially for the gamers in this age group that do play maturely and do not scream at the top of their lungs into their headsets. It’s a major loss for developers making shoot-em-up and rampage style games, with a fair majority of the buyers being under the age of 18.

Personally, I think this is unneeded. Most gamers can play maturely, whether online or not, and most can simply leave their gaming world behind without turning their lives into a rampaging fury. With the fact of almost every video game being unrealistic in some way, I don’t really see the need for an R18+ rating. Most R18+ movies are usually of the horror genre, which are rated 18+ because of the ‘fear-factor’ and the inability of a younger person to understand ‘it’s only a movie’. Not to mention the uncontrollable suspense, which can’t be controlled by the watcher like a game can be by a gamer.