CEO of the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, Ron Curry, has written an opinion piece for ABCNews online on the rapidly maturing video games sector and how it's been bogged down by an insufficient classification system. He provides some impressive game sale results of 2008 and outlines some interesting research results conducted by Bond University to show how widespread games entertainment is today. It would seem that games entertainment has become a far reaching and culturally accepted passtime, and with all the positive support for an R18+ games classification, the rating system remains unchanged.
While some may argue that an introduction of an R18+ rating would mean an influx of obscene games into the market, Ron Curry disagrees. From ABCnews...
Finally, it is important to point out that the proposed R18+ classification for computer and video games will not result in the availability of games containing excessive violence or explicit sex. Material within the R18+ classification would be strictly limited with permissible content set out in the classification guidelines and material exceeding the R18+ guidelines would be refused a classification; just as it exists today for film and video.
Wha?
"...will not result in the availability of games containing excessive violence or explicit sex."
"...classification guidelines and material exceeding the R18+ guidelines would be refused a classification; just as it exists today for film and video."
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Well, if he isn't saying that it will have the same rating (classification of WHAT R18+ is) then this is ok.
But I thought that the rating would be closely comparable to the film and video classification. Excessive violence or explicit sex is what makes R18+ what it is, without that what do you consider '18+'? Extreme adult themes?
Game classification is much stricter
I mean, a softcore sex scene in Games results in a R classification (see GTA3 and subsequent removal from Australian shelves), whereas MA15+ movies appear to have this all the time.
It's all about the interactivity games provide compared to the passive experience of film; this is why I see ratings as being more harsh, and rightly so I would imagine, though a R18+ rating is still required.
As a side note, I also think it's partly that society has long associated video games with a young audience and believe an R18+ rating would just be feeding children porn and violence. To the people who still have this false notion, having an R18+ rating would be like putting sex education in play school.