Friday, March 12, 2010

Debate about R18 rating in Australia

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4 comments:

  1. Will MesilaneMarch 12, 2010 at 8:37 PM

    Yes hands down for sure!

    Our current rating system has been plagued so far with so much crap, such as Fallout 3 almost being banned for using the names of real life drugs that you could get addicted to etc.
    Left 4 Dead 2 because of the intensity of the gameplay (dismemberment, blood, gore etc) as well as the [almost] ban of Alien vs Predator for reasons pretty much like this.

    Michael Atkinson (South Australian Attorney- General) has argued that if they even had the R18+ sticker on the cover of a game that it will still be easily accessible to children or people under the age of 18.
    In my opinion what he doesn't realize is that if a 12 year old kid (the kind that is annoying as all hell online on CoD or Halo..) asks their mother, or father, to buy them a game and they see that there is a clear red R18+ rating on the cover they wont buy that game, nor rent it...unless the parent is an absolute moron. As well as this any parent would know to keep a game rated as such in a place where their children can't access them. That's the way my Mum and Dad did it for me, as I can recall trying to rent a game that was M15+ (can't for the life of me remember the name) on the Nintendo 64 and strictly being told NO!

    Another thing I don't Atkinson understands is that games is also another art form, a way to express one's self, a way to tell a story under an interactive medium in which there should be no major boundaries (some things excluded obviously) and should not be so tightly bound.

    So yeah, Australia definitely needs an R18+ rating for video games, so there is a rating scheme that is flexible enough for developers to truly create what they want.

    -Will

    On another note: Does anyone else read Hyper? The current issue has some really funny stuff paying out on Michael Atkinson

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  2. Chester G.March 13, 2010 at 4:29 PM

    Tell me, do you blame the company that sells the knives or the murderer who committed the crime? Do you blame the car company who indirectly supplied the getaway car for the bank robbers to escape with? Sounds stupid doesn't it? You blame the person, not the other way around.

    Any parent with a straight moral compass and god given common sense, should realise anything emblazoned with 'R18+ ADULT ONLY' isn't a game for little Micky. Heck if I recall, Atkinson once claimed that a gamer was more dangerous then a bikey.

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  3. Manolya BMarch 17, 2010 at 8:24 PM

    My little brother plays MA rated games and he's so violent and thats just MA rated games..... My parents don't have no care factor on the games rating... My little brother played Hulk on ps2 when he was 4 years old and now plays the new Halo game at the age of 10.

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  4. keikasagawaMarch 18, 2010 at 3:12 PM

    that goes the same with my family, my mum would care about the rating on a tv/movie but didn't care about the content on games. so i do agree its really up to a parents choice of setting the boundaries of what appropriate, because having committees, groups or factions trying to tell what other parent SHOULD do is just wrong, like if it was like friendly helpful advise or just some indicator to tell something to the parent what is an option, then that doesn't feel as pressuring to the parent.

    but i do agree if we have r18+ rating then i would think both side could really gain from this, the side of protective parents of more mature content and the people of age having to option of being able to get it.

    plus as well i think the parents should be more watching on the childrens activities on the internet, but thats a whole different issue.

    also my final point, while minors are intrigued but stuff like gore, blood, violence and sexual content, i believe parents should become a more healthy influence in gaming, to both understand gamesand also allow time to spend with the kids. that way it feels more better for the both and not to mention parents sometimes ruin the coolest thing by them thinking its cool too. lol

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