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To break the chain of just writing reviews on the blog I’ve decided to write about a topic which concerns most Aussie gamers and my opinions on it. I’m fairly sure most people would already be aware of the basics of what it is. The lack of an R18+ rating in Australia leads to many games being refused classification and banned which upsets a lot of Australian gamers. For everybody outside though it’s just a source of laughs . There are reasons for the lack of an R18+ rating which I support but I think there are better ways to handle this though I’m more inclined to agree that we should have an R18+ rating.

Why is there a lack of an R18+ rating?

The lack of an R18+ rating comes from the OFLC (Office of Film & Literature Clasification) treating video games differently. While many people have attempted to promote an R18+ rating, because it requires the approval of all the attorney-generals and some are against it, there hasn’t been any progress on approving an R18+ rating however since then a debate has been opened to the public which can be found here.

The short version of why is that they believe that the introduction of an R18+ rating will allow games to be sold with that rating. This in turn will lead to minors being able to get hold of them which may cause problems. So they refuse to have an R18+ to protect minors.  A full explanation can be found here.

My Opinion

While I agree with their intention to protect minors from R18+ games, I think that more work should be put into what should be banned and what shouldn’t be banned. According to wiki, most videogames are banned in australia because they contain high levels of violence. Some noteable titles being Left 4 Dead 2, Silent Hill: Homecoming and F.E.A.R 2. Although Fallout 3 was temporarily banned, it was only for glorifying the use of drugs having a positive outcome thus a textual change as all that needed.

Why are these games banned? They’re banned because they are believed to have a negative influence on minors. While there has been barely any scientific studies relating video game violence to violence outside, I believe that the two are related. While there have been many exceptions I’ve found that many children who grow up are affected by the environment around them. Growing up in a troubled neighbourhood in comparison to a good community will bring about different types of children. Depending on their upbringing it’s more than likely that there will be more delinquents coming out of the troubled neighbourhood because he was influenced by those around him from a young age. From my experiences the determining factor is the mindset of the child as he grows up.

I know I’m riding on a tangent right now however I think that there’s a huge difference between a child who grows up being heavily exposed to violent video-games in comparison to a child who is only mildly exposed to them and instead prefers more casual games. As if a child is exposed to gratious violence such as in GTA then he will become familiar with it and won’t find it a problem. An interesting point brought up by a friend is that “there is the issue of a child with a violent personallity would be more likely to play GTA than Pokemon”. Surely there is no problem as most people know the difference between what’s right and wrong however I find it a bit disturbing when I see people who find ecstasy in playing GTA in which they hijack a car and run over or gun down civilians with no other reason than it’s fun, although I’m guilty of this sometimes. If a child grows up on a game like that then it will be a little concerning when he grows up as if he enjoyed the carnage he inflicted in a video game then who knows what he’ll be like when he’s an adult. There’s always the possibility that he may not turn out to be a violent individual but that is a possibility, a chance. This means it’s not certain whether he could be one or he might not. What the ratings system is for is to give parents a guideline on what they are to be expecting when they purchase a game. But GTA is rated MA15+, surely parents know what they’re getting for their children! That’s the problem I have with the current ratings system. According to the rating system there isn’t a difference between MW2 and GTA as they’re both rated as MA15+ however there is a large difference in the mindsets when playing. I’ve found that in GTA I tend to cause as much havoc as I want without much repercussions in comparison to CoD where I’m fighting to survive. Sure in both games you’re killing people but in GTA you’re able to kill people who aren’t affecting you in any way and just minding their business. On the other hand, you have to shoot back at people who are trying to kill you. The difference is that in one game you’re trying to cause as much carnage as possible (I’m well aware you’re not forced to kill in GTA but who doesn’t?) while the other requires you to perform specific objectives to survive. Hence I believe that with an introduction of an R18+ rating it will allow a greater degree of versification which will allow parents to make a more informed choice on their purchases of video games for their children.

What parent would buy a video game like that for a child? Nowadays as video games become more mainstream and accepted, parents are beginning to enjoy them (Especially with the advent of the Wii). Hence just maybe they might buy GTA so they can play it themselves. The problem with this is that children will eventually get their hands on it somehow and that’s where the main problem with this lies. Parents should take responsibility for what they allow their children to do. I’m not saying my parents are perfect but when I was younger they drilled certain subjects into me such as being polite to people and condemned violent video games such as GTA (To this day they still do it). Their reason being that they didn’t want me to grow up like people in those video games. In today’s changing society many parents are letting other things take care of their children such as TV, the education system and video games. While being fully aware of how violent some games are, I’ve seen parents handwave it by claiming that “They’re video games, What harm can they do?”. With the increasing dependance on technology alot of people are unaware of how much an influence video games are and becoming lenient on the ratings thinking that an MA15+ is ok for a 12 year old because it’s a video game and leaving children to it. The problem here is that now a lot of people expect children to be brought up for them through guidelines instead of taking responsibility. The quality of an adult is determined by his upbringing and the lack of proper parental responsibilities would cause other influences to be greater (and we all know how bad TV is nowadays). What needs to be done is that the government needs to be told that Aussie gamers aren’t all children. We don’t want the government telling us what we should have and what we shouldn’t have. They need to know that we already know what’s right and what’s wrong and instead of banning games, they should work more on educating parents on the increasing influence of media and video games towards children. In the words of Affian: “People need to take responsibility for their own actions and stop relying on government legislation to tell them what to do because it ruins it for everyone with an IQ above 10.”

Notes

I’m aware I made some broad statements such as how kids act like their influences but that comes from my experiences. I’ve seen many children who act extremely violent towards those around them especially when they are playing Halo and similar games. While I’m not attributing this directly to violent video games, most of these were a result of parental neglect and possibly video game addiction. I’ve also noticed a trend that children who gravitate towards the violent video games tend to be more rude and hostile in comparison to those who prefer more casual games.

I’m not condemning the existance of GTA, infact I enjoy playing it periodically, I’m just against children playing games which promote gratious violence without being properly told how it is wrong to do things like that. Sure they’ll more than likely never even think about hijacking a car or going around shooting people but what about beating pedestrians for money. They did it in GTA which is alot more realistic than other games so why won’t the thought come to mind when they’re older? I know I’ve had those types of thoughts but I chose not to because I know it’s wrong. If a child becomes familiar with doing that in a video game than real-life isn’t too different (other than he’ll probably get decked). In the end, the possibility is there. It’s better to reduce the possibility than ignore it because it’s so low that it’s highly unlikely. The introduction of an R18+ rating will bring more attention to it.

I don’t even want to talk about games such as Postal. Those games are so wrong in every way and deserve to be banned. Soldier of Fortune: Payback deserved to be banned because of how bad a game it is. Silent Hill: Homecoming may qualify for that too.

And that marks the end of some incoherent rambling by me again.