Australia is not out of the woods yet. We have groups over here who are lobbying the Govt to make R18+ just as restricted as the current R15 rating (yes, which would make having an R18+ rating completely pointless).
Australia officially introduces R18+ for games
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
The adult classification for games officially made into legal legislation after passing Senate without amendment; R18+ for games scheduled to come into practice January 1, 2013.
Australia has officially introduced an R18+ classification for video games.
The proposed R18+ classification for video games in Australia passed the federal parliament without amendment today, turning the adult rating for games into official federal legislation.
The R18+ bill was introduced to parliament in February by Federal Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Justice Jason Clare. The bill passed the Lower House in March, also without amendment.
Since passing the Senate today, the R18+ legislation has become law.
"These are important reforms over 10 years in the making," Clare said today in a statement.
"The R18+ category will inform consumers, parents and retailers about which games are not suitable for minors to play, and will prevent minors from purchasing unsuitable material. The reforms also mean that adults are able to choose what games they play within the bounds of the law."
According to Clare's office, Australia's state and territories will now move to pass their own complementary legislation to ensure that R18+ games are "appropriately regulated."
Subject to this, the national R18+ for games will come into effect on January 1, 2013.
Australia's federal, state, and territory ministers first agreed to introduce R18+ for games in Australia on July 21, 2011, after years of setbacks, negotiations, and public consultation on the issue.
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.
180 comments
Yay, now Australians are considered to have the mental capacity and judgement of 18+ year individuals instead of just 15-year-olds. The childish banning of games considered too brutal (or whatever BS argument they use) is now gone.
Finally! I've seen a lot of articles about the R18+ rating system being introduced to Australia over the years, finally it's actually happening!
1 Like Finally Australia has come out of the dark ages and joined the modern world of video games meant for an older teen to adult audience, a celebration is in order Aussies!
So will they be upgrading some MA15+ games as well as allowing future R18+ games? Simply upgrading Call of Duty to R18+ doesn't make a difference. Having said that, no games that i've wanted to play have been refused classification, so it's not important to me...yet.
1 Like Finally. Any word on whether they will revisit the RC catalog? We've missed some really great games recently I still wanna get my hands on. Hope they do it properly.
1 Like It is funny, because it has only been because of ONE PERSON...that this has taken sooooo loooooong just to come in
finally...now we wait another 10 years for the X18+ rating.
7 Like Give them a cookie. Australia's federal, state, and territory ministers finally reached puberty at their 18th birthday.
@wisebandit Lol! Well I wasn't being sarcastic but true that. Although by this point I'm finding it hard to believe.
2 Like So now Australia can't censor art? Sweet shit. Now in Fallout 4 we can call it morphine instead of Med-X (seriously, it was supposed to be call morphine first, then Michael Atkinson starting being a prick and they had to change it and Bethesda just said 'Fuck it' and made it Med-X in all versions). Anyways, grats my Australian friends, even though I don't know anyone from Australia.
3 Like Hopefully it means less under age kids thinking they are cool rapping in between mp maps
2 Like Finally my aussie gaming comrades will finally be able to actually play the games I do
4 Like Finnaaaaalllllllllyyyyyy.............
The gamers won in the end. It was a long time coming, now Aussie gamers should be glad :D
5 Like Whole rating system exists because of tight-ass parents who blame their horrible kids to be a result of video games rather than their abysmal parenting and society they live in.
There should be no "age" rating on anything, just "recommended" age upon which the consumer himself (or his parents) decide whether it is suitable for him to view or not.
Banning something for everybody due to an opinion of one (or a committee of) is nonsense, and in essence is no different from religious censorships of the dark age.
Now we won't have to see all those stories about games being banned in Australia, as they finally will have a ratings category for those games and won't have to just ban them.
1 Like I'm Really glad to see this Rating system finally appRoved. It means that gameRs who have been denied what the Rest of the fRee woRld has had access to can now expeRience the matuRe themed software.
18 thumbs up.
This comment has been deleted
1 Like This is great news considering we're coming up to a ultra realistic generation of graphics. May have been harder to pass further down the track so it's good to be in the clear.
1 Like Good news for Aussies. Games like Witcher 2 deserve to be played by everyone. (18 and above of course ) :P
1 Like As an adult Australian gamer I have to say however unpopular the opinion might be, I don't think this is going to change anything in Australia except that it will give kids easier access to graphic gaming content and it won't give us better games.
2 Like What you will see is M15+ being cleaned up more, because developers won't need to sneak material and subtext through anymore. I hate the argument that better ratings means corruption of youth. It's false.
5 Like @closernow To give easier access to kids means that somebody has to buy it for them. At some point, people and parents need to take responsibility for their own actions, instead of always trying to find a scapegoat.
@Slydog39 That's exactly right, parents need to be educated about the issue and need to know that they have the power to know what's going on but I don't see it happening, I see staff in video game shops seeing dollar bills instead of underage gamers, I see parents not caring and I see older siblings etc. getting the games for younger kids as well. That's an argument against the ruling and i'm not against it at all, I'm just not convinced of its necessity at this point. I find it more annoying that games will be R18 because of graphic violence and sex etc. rather than actually being more mature and adult. We don't have those games, we want them instead of more violence.
@baksakncrakwax What am I supposed to be kidding about? An R18+ rating implies that parents have control over their 16 year old kids who look like 20 year olds which of course they don't which is why I'm thinking this ruling is irrelevant and 'sales people don't give a rats?' Thats EXACTLY what I said. Thanks for agreeing with me by arguing with me.
@closernow you are kidding right? You will point the blame on parents when a 16 yr old kid who looks 20 at a mall will pay for an 18+ game with their pocket money. Sales people don't give a rats, they want the sale.
am all for the ruling but lets not kid ourselves.
1 Like yay well done to the guys who led the charge and finally won, well done gamespot for supporting it so well. well done australia yayayayay
1 Like Also I guess that (although we get more and more uncut games as the time passes) now Germany is officially the worst democratic country to be a gamer :/
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