Poll: Why do we need R18+?

[Shiftysnowdog]

Go and watch a movie called Requiem for a Dream. Then you will understand why there needs to be an 18+ rating.

It hasn't happened yet, but once the gaming industry has made a game that is as disturbing to play as Requiem is to watch, then, we will need an 18+ rating.

Try Amnesia, that's quite disturbing to play and I've heard Heavy Rain is supposed to be quite disturbing too, although its more of a interactive movie than a game. I need to check out Reqium for a Dream now though, just to see if it's that disturbing.

Don't say I didn't warn you, I've been put off this week. It ruined T.V, my favorite form of porn, and drugs for me. My life is basically now meaningless.

 

[Vault101]

Hi, I'd just like to introduce myself to the Escapist. Anyway, I've been reading through the forums for a long time and I perceive a lot of fixation over the institution of an R18+ games rating for Australia. Now personally, just for the sake of creating some well meaning discussion, I'd like to question why? For what reason should we have R18+ ratings?

And please don't say 'because everyone else has one', it is not a logical reason.

Personally, I dislike playing games above an M15+ rating. In my mind's eye, if a game is so graphic or violent that it is rated MA15+, I don't need to play it; it's just violence for the sake of violence. Yes, I just shot that person with my blaster. Yes, they got shot in the arm, yes they fell over and died. So? My objection to R18+ games is that I don't want (or need) to see the person's arm being blown off in a splash of blood, with tendons still hanging from the dismembered flesh and the person screaming wildly as you then proceed to bludgeon them to death with their own arm. I realise now that a lot of hardcore gamers will disagree with this point, as they tend to regard ?realism? as central to a game.

I agree that realism is, to an extent, vital to a game in this modern age. However, mindless violence is detrimental to many games (remember the outrage of Australian gamers when, I think it was Dead Rising 2, had to be modified to fit the MA15+ ratings for Australia? One of the thrilling things they were missing out on was specifically 'the ability to strangle to death with the victim?s intestines'. Ha ha...) Perhaps a reasonable alternative could be that games could have in-built rating customisation? In the same way you change difficulty, why not change the amount of violence, gore etc? In Unreal Tournament there is always an option to turn off blood and gore, and because of this I've spent many happy hours versing my like-minded mates.

That said, I have played and enjoyed (enjoyed a lot!) MA15+ games such as Halo: Reach and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and I believe them to be excellent. However, these games were neither mindlessly or gratuitously violent.

I guess all that I'm really saying is that it saddens me that whenever I walk into EB games these days, it's an actual struggle to find any game that isn?t rated MA15+ for the 360, and a torment to actually find many good games rated under MA15+. So I have to sit sadly on my couch, continually playing NBA Live or go back to playing wonderful PS1 games such as Crash and Spyro...

Anyway, after all that, I don't want comments on my opinion. If you decide to abuse, insult or objectify me, you probably only read the first sentence of my post, AND you are missing the point of this thread. Read the first paragraph again and comment on that please! Thanks!

GH

its so that games CAN be released in this country, and without being altered, we should have the CHOICE to play them when other countrys like the US and UK can

like left 4 dead 2 I hear was very much ruined

anyway games are violent because that sells, how ever there are games with the rating that don't do the whole violence thing over the top, like mass effect, dragon age and assasins creed,

 

[loc978]

I think I like the rating system we have on this side of the pond better. M for mature, Ao for porn. The M rating covers pretty much every game with bloody graphic violence or mild nudity. These ratings are just a guideline for parents, as it should be. If you don't want your kid playin' violent games, keep an eye on what they like and what they do. If you want that but don't want to get into your kids' hobby far enough to tell one from another... well, ya shouldn't have had kids.

 

[elvor0]

Go and watch a movie called Requiem for a Dream. Then you will understand why there needs to be an 18+ rating.

It hasn't happened yet, but once the gaming industry has made a game that is as disturbing to play as Requiem is to watch, then, we will need an 18+ rating.

Try Amnesia, that's quite disturbing to play and I've heard Heavy Rain is supposed to be quite disturbing too, although its more of a interactive movie than a game. I need to check out Reqium for a Dream now though, just to see if it's that disturbing.

Don't say I didn't warn you, I've been put off this week. It ruined T.V, my favorite form of porn, and drugs for me. My life is basically now meaningless.

Hah hah, I fully expect to see adverts for Requiem recovery centres now

 

[Gigano]

Two reasons really:

To avoid the necessity of any censorship of the content by having a category intended solely for - and marketed solely at - adults of full legal age and mental maturity.

To avoid gradually pushing the 15+ rating beyond what a 15 year old can generally handle. With no higher category to resort to, the limits of it will eventually slide [http://www.connectedconsoles.com/ps3-god-of-war-iii-escapes-modification-in-australia.cfm], and the purpose of the rating system - to accurately inform consumers what age group the content is generally suited for - be undermined.

So for the sake of both groups - the one's who want gratuitous adult content in their games, and one's who wants to remain sure they don't get such content in the games they buy - an 18+ rating is needed.

Seriously, when did more nuance and better informed choices become bad?

 

[badgersprite]

Don't you think it's unfair that video games receive unfair treatment compared to movies and TV, though? It's perfectly acceptable for me to go to the theatre or a BlockBuster rental store and see Machete, which involves a scene where the protagonist cuts open a man's stomach, grabs his intestines, then uses his intestines as a rope to swing out a window while the victim is still alive.

So, that's all good and wholesome and films are special and artistic, so why aren't video games afforded these same protections in Australia? That is the issue here, at least from my perspective. Why are things fine up until you put them in a game? And why is it the government's job to tell me, a reasonable adult, what I can and cannot watch? I thought I was supposed to be free to choose what I want to watch or want to play, just as you're free to not buy violent games. Australia getting an R18 rating isn't going to suddenly mean every game that comes out here is violent.

And I say all this as a person who doesn't have a single game on her favorites list with an MA rating. I like non-violent kiddie games more than violent ones, but I sure as heck want to be the one who decides what's good for me and not a government full of people who have never even played Pong.

 

[random_bars]

Your idea that games rated above M15+ are just tendons and screaming and gratuitous blood is just wrong. Games which are refused classification or whatever the equivalent, are done so because the ratings panel decided to do so. Why is their opinion on whether a game is too violent right?

Left 4 Dead 2, for example, really isn't some blood simulation gore murder fest. But because the zombies can be dismembered - as opposed to, say, politely falling over when they're shot - an entire country was prevented from playing the game. Until Valve replaced the blood with dust, and made the zombies disappear the second they hit the floor.

Look, it's a goddamn zombie game. You are shooting huge hordes of zombies with shotguns and assault rifles. Why wouldn't there be a bit of blood in that situation? And why should a small group of people who really don't know much about games be allowed to decide whether adults living in a whole country are allowed to play it or not?

 

[Woodsey]

R18+ is a stricter method of control, as everyone has stated repeatedly.

We already have games that are 18+ in other countries, but they've been lowered to an MA15+ label in Australia.

Despite the handwringing and screaming of "AUSTRALIA SUCKS AND HATES FREEDOM!" (mostly from pricks who don't even live here) games being squeezed into MA15+ unaltered is far more common than altered content or getting slapped with a Refused Classification rating. When you pull the numbers up, the amount of games RC'ed or altered averages roughly 1 per year.

Which is what makes the system even more stupid than what it appears at face value.

Having said that:

To avoid gradually pushing the 15+ rating beyond what a 15 year old can generally handle.

The difference between what a 15-year-old can handle and what an 18-year-old can is, well, nothing at all. Most people have started drinking by then, started doing sexual shit (even if it's not actual sex), seen porn, seen violence in film, and of course had access to the internet. The difference is that you can do all that legally by the time you're 18. The mentality is the same.

I'd be quite happy to set a 15 as the highest rating, but using it in the same way that an 18 is the highest rating over here. I.e. A 15+ treats adults and young adults like their age group, not infants, which is what the Australian system does.

 

[Lordmarkus]

Because a game like GTA IV or the equivalent shouldn't get away with a 15+ rating just because a countries rating system is retarded.

 

[mythtech]

R18 games rating should be introduced for a number of reasons, for a start it would bring the games industry inline with other more established mediums such as film. One of the main reasons the R18 rating is denyed to us is that the government still views video games as childrens entertainment and assumes that if they introuduce a R18 rating then all the children will play the sexed up, violent, curse filled games that it would allow. Now lots of games that should get R18 ratings are passing as MA15 games which do not have a limitation on them in terms of who can purchus them, the R18 rating only allows adults to buy the product which means if a child does play an R18 game there would be almost always parental permission which is another can of worms. Also look at the movie industry sure there are lots of R18 'gore porn' movies but also Shindlers List and Fight Club which is generly regarded as some of the best movies ever made (6 and 14 on the IMDB top 250 movies list) were given a R18 ratings in Australia, if they had been edited for a MA rating then they would not have been any where near as good. the same argument can be made for games sure we don't NEED to see vast amounts of gore but it detracts from the intended experience, have you ever seen left for dead 2 in it's MA edited version? well it loses alot of the atmosphere in L4D1 because of simple changes to make it essentally 'kid friendly'

anyway i'm starting to rant so i hope you can extract some usefull insight from that...

 

[mythtech]

R18+ is a stricter method of control, as everyone has stated repeatedly.

We already have games that are 18+ in other countries, but they've been lowered to an MA15+ label in Australia.

Despite the handwringing and screaming of "AUSTRALIA SUCKS AND HATES FREEDOM!" (mostly from pricks who don't even live here) games being squeezed into MA15+ unaltered is far more common than altered content or getting slapped with a Refused Classification rating. When you pull the numbers up, the amount of games RC'ed or altered averages roughly 1 per year.

Which is what makes the system even more stupid than what it appears at face value.

Having said that:

To avoid gradually pushing the 15+ rating beyond what a 15 year old can generally handle.

The difference between what a 15-year-old can handle and what an 18-year-old can is, well, nothing at all. Most people have started drinking by then, started doing sexual shit (even if it's not actual sex), seen porn, seen violence in film, and of course had access to the internet. The difference is that you can do all that legally by the time you're 18. The mentality is the same.

I'd be quite happy to set a 15 as the highest rating, but using it in the same way that an 18 is the highest rating over here. I.e. A 15+ treats adults and young adults like their age group, not infants, which is what the Australian system does.

you know if you were over 18 you would understand the differences between 18 and 15 year olds sure superficialy they similar in behaviour but 15 year olds still have a lot of muturing to do, hell the difference between 18 and 25 still has alot of growing and maturing taking place...

 

[Smooth Operator]

Personally, I dislike playing games above an M15+ rating. In my mind's eye, if a game is so graphic or violent that it is rated MA15+, I don't need to play it;

See that is your preference, and your standpoint comes from that, but there are people out there that are not you and have different preferences.
The same way alot of people don't like adult movies there are others who do.

Now do we tailor the world after one subset of people or maybe consider the freedom we all like to wax lyrics about?

 

[Woodsey]

R18+ is a stricter method of control, as everyone has stated repeatedly.

We already have games that are 18+ in other countries, but they've been lowered to an MA15+ label in Australia.

Despite the handwringing and screaming of "AUSTRALIA SUCKS AND HATES FREEDOM!" (mostly from pricks who don't even live here) games being squeezed into MA15+ unaltered is far more common than altered content or getting slapped with a Refused Classification rating. When you pull the numbers up, the amount of games RC'ed or altered averages roughly 1 per year.

Which is what makes the system even more stupid than what it appears at face value.

Having said that:

To avoid gradually pushing the 15+ rating beyond what a 15 year old can generally handle.

The difference between what a 15-year-old can handle and what an 18-year-old can is, well, nothing at all. Most people have started drinking by then, started doing sexual shit (even if it's not actual sex), seen porn, seen violence in film, and of course had access to the internet. The difference is that you can do all that legally by the time you're 18. The mentality is the same.

I'd be quite happy to set a 15 as the highest rating, but using it in the same way that an 18 is the highest rating over here. I.e. A 15+ treats adults and young adults like their age group, not infants, which is what the Australian system does.

you know if you were over 18 you would understand the differences between 18 and 15 year olds sure superficialy they similar in behaviour but 15 year olds still have a lot of muturing to do, hell the difference between 18 and 25 still has alot of growing and maturing taking place...

Maturing? Sure.

But ratings are brought in primarily on the notion of what's "appropriate" for that age group, and by 15 you're not going to be trying to imitate games or getting nightmares from them or whatever, and bad language is a no-brainer; kids start swearing when they're 10.

When you're 15, you're not a kid in the same sense that a 12-year-old is. So yeah, there's room to mature, but any notion that they can't cope or whatever with the stuff in a 18 rated game is silly.

 

[Fishyash]

Personally I don't think the 18 rating should exist, just the adult only rating. Sometimes the difference between some 15s and some 18s are rather hard to distinguish.

Simple opinion personally, sometimes you can easily tell the difference, but there are plenty of young teens playing 18 games and sometimes it makes me wonder, should it really be an 18?

 

[Gigano]

...

The difference between what a 15-year-old can handle and what an 18-year-old can is, well, nothing at all. Most people have started drinking by then, started doing sexual shit (even if it's not actual sex), seen porn, seen violence in film, and of course had access to the internet. The difference is that you can do all that legally by the time you're 18. The mentality is the same.

I'd be quite happy to set a 15 as the highest rating, but using it in the same way that an 18 is the highest rating over here. I.e. A 15+ treats adults and young adults like their age group, not infants, which is what the Australian system does.

No doubt most 15 year olds can handle God of War and other such games, but I doubt all their legal guardians - only lost at age 18 - can handle them playing it. Since it's a system largely for their benefit (I never once looked at age ratings), I say give them the info as accurately as possible, by leaving stuff like explicit sexual content or extremely graphic ultra-violence in a category of its own.

Of course, far less explicit content than that is currently rated 18+, so I wouldn't at all be opposed to liberalize what the 15+ rating should be able to cover. There should still be a separate category for the most explicit or disturbing things and themes though, those so controversial that perhaps a large group of people - including quite a few adults - generally can't or won't handle them though.

 

[Shilkanni]

Yeah I think you missed the big reasons:
* We don't think violent or adult themed games in ranged between MA to R should be banned in our country.
* We don't want game makers 'holding back' and not being able to make the game they want because they can't risk their game being banned. Australia does not change the whole world but I don't want my country to be part of the problem.

 

[crudus]

Clearly the MA18 sells. If it didn't sell game designers wouldn't keep making it. People apparently like the R18+ so it has its niche. Also it seems your whole argument is based on "I don't like it so it shouldn't exist". If you don't like a media then ignore it go enjoy something else.

And please don't say 'because everyone else has one', it is not a logical reason.

"Why do we need an army?"
"Because everyone else has one!"
"That is a stupid and illogical reason."
(proof by contradiction)

If everyone else has a R18+ then it is clearly selling and making money. So get it so you can make money too!