Refused Classification

Since moving to Australia, I have had to come to terms with the rather archaic games rating system that this country has. The Australian Classification Board doesn't have an R18 rating for video games. Basically, what this means is that any game which would normally warrant an R18 rating, due to violence or sexual content or a number of other things, simply gets a 'RC', or Refused Classification. This means that it can't be released for sale in Australia. The highest possible rating before a game gets refused classification is MA15+.

Four games so far this year have been refused classification. One of the RC's, Dark Sector on the Xbox 360, didn't get too much coverage because it wasn't a high profile release. But even huge, high profile titles aren't immune. Notable titles such as Grand Theft Auto 4, Fallout 3, and only a few days ago Silent Hill: Homecoming, have all been refused classification. In the cases of GTA 4 and Fallout 3 the developers actually had to modify their games to get them released in Australia. Bethesda Softworks, the developer of Fallout 3, actually went so far as making changes to the worldwide release of the game instead of just the Australian release. The problem the Board had with the game was the depiction of drug use in the game, in particular using drugs such as morphine as a painkiller. The board saw this as an incentive to use drugs in the game, which is a big black cross in their books. The game now has fictional drugs in place of real ones, and also the realistic depiction of actually using the drugs has been replaced by simple icons to represent them.

Now, apart from the whole taking away our rights to choose what we want to play side of this equation, there is also a rather serious side-effect of having no R18 rating. Because the highest possible rating in Australia is only MA15+, this means that games which in other countries are rated R18 are available for sale to kids the age of 15 in Australia. Now, is it just me, or is that pretty fucked up? I mean, GTA 4 (which only had minor changes to be released in Australia ) can happily be played by 15 year olds here, when in every other country it is R18. That's just insane!

Now, my initial reaction to things like this happening is anger. But this is a knee jerk reaction, because there is more to this than just the Board being a bunch of old fuddy duddies and wanting to keep those naughty games away from all of us. It's a tricky situation. From a personal standpoint, I really think that there should be an R18 rating for games here, simply because I think it's ridiculous that an industry where the average age of the user is 28 years old doesn't have a product that matches their maturity level. However, there are obviously problems with this when it comes to children game players due to stupid retailers and equally stupid parents.

New Zealand, my home country, has an R18 rating for it's games. When I worked at Dick Smith Electronics back in NZ I was incredibly diligent about what games I would sell to people. I turned a lot of kids away who were trying to buy R18 games, and would always request to see ID if they even looked like they might not be 18. The reason I was so onto it was because both myself and my employer could be fined massive amounts of money if I sold an R rated game to a minor! From what I can see, there doesn't seem to be a law like this in Australia. This is a problem, because without punishment for the retailers then there is no deterrent to stop them from selling R rated games to minors. The solution to this? Put the laws in place! Put those massive fines in place for the retailers. Put that fear into them, and they'll think twice about selling Limb Lopper 4 to little Johnny.

In regards to the parents, unfortunately a lot of them really don't seem to have a clue when it comes to what their kids are playing. I recall a couple of occasions when I was working at DSE, and parents were purchasing GTA: San Andreas for their children. I advised one mother who was purchasing the game for her son ( who must have been about 13 years old ) that the game was rated R18, and contained extreme violence and language and sexual situations, but she honestly didn't seem to care. I got the impression that she thought that because it was just a game, it couldn't be that bad. But on the flip-side, there was one parent that I talked out of buying GTA for his son when I told him about it's content. So, there are some smart parents out there who listen to reason.

This is a complex situation to be sure, but the politicians involved in these decisions just need to use a bit of common sense. Educate the public about R rated games, let the parents know what their kids might be playing, and put laws in place so that there is a framework for R18 games to be safely sold in Australia.