Brisbane, Australia is the site of a planned rally which hopes to show government authorities just how serious gamers Down Under are about receiving an R18+ videogame rating category.

The rally is planned for December 5th at 11:00 AM in King George Square. Treat Us Like Adults, a website/organization founded by game developer Ethan Watson, is behind the movement. Watson has a personal stake in the lack of an R18+ rating as he wants to “make games that, due to thematic content, would likely be refused classification in his home country.”

Watson also plans to give a speech at the event.

Given that a previously planned, and subsequently postponed, demonstration scheduled for Australia earlier this year was going to feature protestors dressed in cosplay, Watson felt the need to note, “Just keep in mind that if you want this rally to be taken seriously by the public at large, you should probably leave your zombie gear for the Zombie Walk or Supanova.”


Thanks Ryan!

Responding to an inquiry from a gamer about the lack of an R18+ rating for videogames in Australia, Attorney General Michael Atkinson put down his feelings in a long letter.

The Attorney General apparently has little or no plan to change his stance anytime soon.

Among his choicest replies:

I have considered the statistics. I am well aware that many game players are adults. Indeed, a whole generation has now grown-up with computer games. It is not surprising that those who enjoyed gaming as children go on playing into adult life and, indeed, play electronic games with their own children. Added to this, games grow ever more sophisticated, challenging and entertaining, and, accordingly, more attractive to adult players. My three sons are always playing computer games at home and one of them is now 22.

I understand the Wii console has been phenomenally successful for Nintendo and that system provides many games to challenge and develop skill, physically and intellectually, without depraved sex, gore and cruelty.

I am baffled and worried about why proponents of R.18+ games are putting up their hands and saying 'Give us more cruel sex and extreme violence!'

I cannot fathom what State-enforced safeguards could exist to prevent R.18+ games being bought by households with children and how children can be stopped from using these games once the games are in the home. If adult gamers are so keen to have R.18+ games, I expect children would be just as keen.

Atkinson ends the letter with a bit of a diss at those who think this is an important issue:

I think you will find this issue has little traction with my constituents who are more concerned with real-life issues than home entertainment in imaginary worlds.

The full letter can be read on the GrowUpAustralia.com website, a relatively new website designed to champion the introduction of an R18+ rating category.

Gamers4Croydon, the fledgling political party that hopes to run a candidate against Atkinson has posted a rebuttal to the letter from one its founding members, Chris Prior. Among his responses:

Mr Atkinson suggests that if you ask "an adult" how they feel about playing video games, they will "give you ... opinion only." Putting aside that the asked question was in fact about opinion, the implied meaning is that gamers are incapable of examining how games affect them. I, as "an adult" have a range of experiences with games of varied genres. The violent games Mr Atkinson so reviles help me reduce stress and express frustration, just as some people hit a boxing bag or go for a run.

Thanks Michael, Matthew and Ryan

The man behind the Gamers4Croydon party (formed to knock South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson out of office) recently gave an interview to the Sydney Morning Herald.

One clarification to come out of the chat—30 year old David Doe will not run himself against Atkinson. He is simply taking the steps to get the party formed, then will look for an appropriate candidate to take on the incumbent.

Doe stated:

As a registered voter of Victoria, I cannot run in the South Australian state election. We'll be finding a local candidate by holding a party caucus once Gamers4Croydon has been officially registered by the SA Electoral Commission.

Doe on what his “dream scenario” one year from now would entail:

A Gamers4Croydon member sitting in the House of Assembly as the member for the SA electoral seat of Croydon for a start, with another member sitting in the SA Legislative Council. Having all parents in Australia knowing how to use the parental controls found in their home consoles. Having an R18+ rating for videogames implemented, thereby giving parents the ability to correctly determine the type of content they are purchasing for their children, and giving adults the right to play adult-oriented material.

South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson has acknowledged his possible videogame developer opponent in the 2010 state elections.

As reported previously, David Doe and his Gamers4Croydon party hope to topple Atkinson. The main purpose of Doe's party is to introduce an R18+ classification for games, which Atkinson strenuously objects to. According to a News.com update, Doe is well on his way to gathering enough signatures to register his party, with over 75 signees. He needs 150 to make the party official.

Atkinson said he “welcomed” Doe’s challenge, adding:

The voters of Croydon will now be asked directly whether they want interactive games in which gamers score points by raping a mother and daughter, blowing themselves up, torturing human figures . . . killing people and taking drugs to improve their sporting prowess.

As a sidebar, a poll embedded in with the story on the paper’s website asks “Should there be an R18+ classification for video games?”  83% of the over 2200 respondents chose “yes” an answer at the time this was written.

The story also notes that Atkinson, who has held his seat for 20 years, received 67.1 percent of the first-preference votes in the 2006 state election.

Thanks Ryan

Following the news of a treatment center in the UK expanding its offerings to include treating game addiction, an Australian academic has called for a similar program to be launched down under.

Sydney University Psychiatric Professor Vladan Starcevic, also billed as a game addition expert, made the call for action to the Herald Sun citing his own recent research in which he polled 2,000 gamers. The results of the survey led him to believe that up to one in ten subjects showed signs of addictive behavior. Starcevic said that his study was undertaken due to more patients exhibiting signs of being addicted to games.

Of the UK’s Broadway Lodge treatment center, Starcevic noted, “I think it's good that someone has taken this seriously. I think it should be recognised that this is a problem for some people.”

Starcevic’s full study will be released in this month’s Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.

A 30-year old Australian videogame tester has formed a political party and aims to give South Australian Attorney Genera Michael Atkinson a run for his money in next year’s election.

David Doe and his Gamers4Croydon party plan to challenge Atkinson only in the Croydon electorate with a sole purpose to “exert pressure on the Attorney General for South Australia, Michael Atkinson, as he is currently the only Attorney General voting 'no' against the introduction of an R18+ classification rating for videogames in Australia.”

Noting that winning a seat based on a single campaign promise would be difficult, Doe outlines a few other items he would attempt to get enacted if elected, which include extending solar rebates, making rainwater tanks for new homes mandatory and providing rebates for electric vehicles.

Doe is accepting donations for his run and promises to donate any left-over post-election funds to Child’s Play.

|Via Games.on.net Thanks Ryan|

The leaked Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 footage has raised the hackles of a few parties in Australia.

The footage, which showed gamers playing the part of a terrorist and taking part in a massacre of civilians at an airport, prompted the Australian Council on Children and the Media to call for a re-review the game’s MA15+ rating.

The group’s President, Jane Roberts, told Australia’s The Age:

The consequences of terrorism are just abhorrent in our community and yet here we are with a product that's meant to be passed off as a leisure time activity, actually promoting what most world leaders speak out publicly against. We understand that it's a game but ... we're not far off when you look at the images that you could actually put it on a Channel Nine news report and you'd think maybe that is real.

South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson, who is usually described as the main reason the country does not have an R18+ rating for videogames, offered that, “Expecting game designers to be responsible by not glorifying terrorism will always lead to disappointment."

Electronic Frontiers Australia lobbyist Nicholas Suzor was a bit more rational, saying the topic highlighted even further the need for an adult rating in Australia:

Films often show the villain's perspective and, by doing that, they get across the character's story and the heinous nature of people who carry out atrocities. Games, too, are becoming more expressive, and are telling more involved stories

Suzor added:

We may make an argument that these sorts of topics are not suitable for children, but I don't at all accept that it is unsuitable for adults.

An Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) spokesperson said the Board could not review its own decisions.

Activision has since said that the scene in question is skippable by players.

Thanks Ryan and Dante

Australia’s Classification Board wants to extend its sphere of influence to mobile applications.

Classification Board Director Donald McDonald (left) has written to Commonwealth Censorship Minister Brendan O'Connor on the issue and also relayed his concerns to a Senate Estimates Committee, expressing his unease that:

Some so-called mobile phone applications, which can be purchased online or either downloaded to mobile phones or played online via mobile phone access, are not being submitted to the board for classification.

The delayed rating of World of Warcraft down under—it took five years for the title to receive a rating—apparently spurred McDonald’s interest in rating mobile content, reports Australia’s ITnews.

A Classification Board spokesperson clarified that McDonald’s rating talk was referring only to “mobile applications which are computer games.”

Apple currently governs its own content on iTunes, but said that if changes needed to be made, “We do what the Australian Classification people tell us to do.”

In rating any mobile content, the Classification Board said it would “apply the National Classification Code, the Classification Act, and the Guidelines for the Classification of Films and Computer.”

|Via Edge-Online| Thanks Ryan

Australian gamers will have to make do with a modified version of Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 as the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) board again denied the title classification following a re-review of the game.

A three-member panel of the board declared that the game could not be accommodated within the MA 15+ classification, reaffirming an earlier decision. Valve and distributor Electronic Arts had appealed the earlier judgment, but as a backup they also submitted a toned down version of L4D2, which received an MA 15+ rating. The edited version removed depictions of decapitation and dismemberment.

Further commenting on the original, Refused Classification version, the board said:

…it was the Review Board’s opinion that there was insufficient delineation between the
depiction of general zombie figures and the human figures, as opposed to the clearly fictional
‘infected’ characters. This was a major consideration of the Review Board in determining the
impact of this game on minors.

A media release on the subject from the OFLC can be viewed here (PDF).

News.com.au reports that a resubmitted and modified version of Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 has been granted a rating by Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification board.

The original version of the zombie-killing title was refused classification by the PFLC, rendering it unreleasable. The edited version has received an MA 15+ rating. Distributor Electronic Arts told the website that it still holds out hope that the resubmitted full version of the game would receive classification and that is the version it would still prefer to release.

The OFLC's full report (PDF) on the modified Left 4 Dead 2 title contains consumer advice of “strong bloody violence,” though the board noted that “the game no longer contains depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment.”

In the Board’s view “the element of violence in the game has been sufficiently modified.”

Via: Edge-Online

Image Via: Cheezburger.com

Using his Edge-Online blog, Alex Walker has penned an open letter to South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson about the lack of an R18+ rating classification in that country.

Walker notes that “the Classification Board has refused classification to twice as many games as the British Board of Film Classification has in the 23 years since it first rated a video game.” He calls out Atkinson on some of his recent statements and uses comments from David Cook, Director of the British Board of Film Classification to aid his case.

Walker finishes with a challenge:

I’m not sure how, given the weight of evidence, you can stand by the inconsistencies in the Australian approach to classifying film and video games. I call on you to stand aside, and allow for a debate on the classification system, a debate which you have so far stifled.

Walker adds that he did email a copy of the letter to Atkinson, but he does not expect a response.

Byteside has a video interview up with Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz discussing the state of Australia’s classification system.

Pomeranz specifically calls out South Australia Attorney General Michael Atkinson, who is against adding an R18+ rating, as GP discussed earlier this week. She states:

You have one AG calling the shots for all of Australia. It must be very frustrating for videogame players who do want to play R rated games.

Pomeranz thinks that governments should act in an advisory role only when it comes to rating media:

“It’s the start of danger, where you have a government effectively saying this is what we will allow you to see. Fortunately, they have very little power these days because we can see anything we want, as long as we are prepared to break the law. What you are doing is turning middle class people into criminals.”

An upcoming lecture in Queensland, Australia, looks to tackle the topic of first-person shooters and real-life violence, according to a news story at Crispy Gamer.

The lecture, entitled "Are Video games to Blame" and to be delivered by academic Peter Mantello, plans to ask if "these kinds of games by their very nature desensitize young adult males and teens to violence, conflict and war and ignore conflict resolution." Apparently, Mantello is a gamer and a founder of the Center for Advanced Media Arts Studies at Ritsumeikan University in Japan.

The Crispy commenter takes issue with the way the university news story on lecture, wondering if certain quotes by Mantello are direct or taken out of context. For example:

“Players transform into cyborg soldiers and patriotic crusaders whose goal is to liberate failed nations, protect national security interests and vanquish pre-modern evil."

The lecture is scheduled for Oct. 5 at the University of Queensland’s School of Political Science and International Studies in St. Lucia.

In light of the refusal of the Australian Classification Board to classify Left 4 Dead 2, some authorities are rethinking the country’s game ratings.

While R18+ ratings exist in Australia for films and other media, videogames still top out with a MA15+ rating, meaning that games that fall outside the spectrum can’t be approved for sale.

Adding an R18+ rating would require the agreement of all Australia’s attorney generals, but News.com.au reports that at least one member of that group is holding out, South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson. Atkinson’s take:

It certainly does restrict choice to a small degree, but that is the price of keeping this material from children and vulnerable adults. In my view, the small sacrifice is worth it.

Victorian Attorney General Rob Hulls disagrees, saying that Australia is “out of step with the world,” adding:

It seems inconsistent that in Australia adults are allowed to view adult-only films which have been classified R18+ by the Classification Board, but not computer games with equivalent high-level content.

Valve and Electronic Arts have appealed Left 4 Dead 2’s refusal of classification.
 

In response to last week’s refusal of the Australia Classification Board to rate Left 4 Dead 2, an Electronic Arts spokesperson had some choice words for the government entity.

Speaking to GameSpot Australia, EA’s Tiffany Steckler began defending the Valve Software title by suggesting that adults should have the right to choose what games they play. She continued:

It’s funny that a place like Australia, which has come up with some pretty violent material in the past with something like Mad Max, can effectively ban video games for the same reason.

There’s still no word on whether or not Valve will institute changes to the sequel in order to get it approved down under.

Update: According to Blue's News, Valve appealed the Classification's board ruling yesterday. Also listed on Blue's are ratings for Left 4 Dead 2 from a variety of territories around the world.

Via Gamasutra comes news that the Australian Government has refused to classify Valve Software’s multiplatform follow up Left 4 Dead 2.

Electronic Arts applied for the rating and was issued a classification of “RC,” for Refused Classification, meaning the game will have to be heavily modified to have any chance of being released in Australia. The ruling (PDF) stated:

These close in attacks cause copious amounts of blood spray and splatter, decapitations and limb dismemberment as well as locational damage where contact is made to the enemy which may reveal skeletal bits and gore.

Australia’s videogame ratings comprise four categories: G (General, very mild content), PG (Parental Guidance Recommended, mild content), M (Mature Audiences, moderate content) and MA15+ (not suitable for people under 15, strong content).

The original Left 4 Dead garnered a MA15+ rating in Australia.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Adelaide has linked regular video game play to gambling addiction.

Australia's ABC News reports on comments by Paul Delfabbro of the University's school of psychology. Delfabbro's team studied more than 2,500 Australian teens and found that more than half admitted to gambling within the preceding 12 months. Delfabbro commented on his findings:

If you look at those young people who are classified as pathological gamblers you will find that they do have a higher frequency of involvement with many different types of videogame. They're much more likely to play games on Xboxes and similar consoles. They are also more likely to play arcade games...

 

Some young people who don't have a lot of structured activities in their life... what they'll often do is spend very large amounts of time playing videogames or often be more likely to be the ones who go off to street venues to play arcade games.

Those sort of young people who've had this need for more sort of unstructured activities probably also drift into gambling a bit more because it's another activity which you can do if you're out on the street.

However, University of Sydney psychology professor Alex Blaszczynski said that the evidence gathered by Delfabbro does not support a causal link between video game play and compulsive gambling:

Does an interest in gambling lead to people becoming involved in video games or do video games lead to people becoming involved in gambling? Or is there a third factor which accounts for both gambling and videogames?

There’s also the possibility that some people with certain characteristics would then tend to engage in both video and technology type gaming activity and gambling as well. And that may well be linked to things like risk taking or impulsivity or other factors.

The University of Adelaide research will appear in next month's Journal of Gambling Studies.

Yesterday, GamePolitics reported on Risen, the latest game to fall victim to Australia's outdated content rating system. The RPG, currently in development by Piranha Bytes, was refused classification for the Australian market, largely because Down Under lacks the equivalent of the ESRB's M (17+) rating.

The situation frustrates Tom Crago, who heads the Game Developers Association of Australia. Crago spoke to itwire about his concerns:

Well it’s a joke isn’t it?  We are once again caught in this awful, ridiculous web of the antiquated classification system...  Here in Australia the sooner that changes, the better; it is obviously a battle to ensure common sense prevails.  We will get there eventually, but in the meantime as gamers in Australia we suffer, and to be honest we are embarrassed at how backward our government is...

The biggest problem we have here in Australia is that we don’t have an R classification for video games...  It’s ridiculous because it assumes that games are fundamentally different to film and outrageous in that it assumes that adults shouldn’t be allowed to access adult content in video games... 

We are the butt of a lot of jokes; I travel, obviously a lot, talking to other developers and publishers and people cannot believe it that we still have this ridiculous system here in Australia, designed twenty or thirty years ago, and hasn’t changed since...

[South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson] is of course the problem... clearly this is a guy that doesn’t get it, and to be honest, I don’t think, ever will get it...

The upcoming role-playing game Risen has become the latest victim of Australia's flawed game content rating system.

Refused Classification reports that Australia's classification board has declined to assign a rating to the game, which is being developed by Piranha Bytes. The board's action makes Risen the third game of 2009 to be RC'd Down Under; the others are 1C's first-person shooter Necrovision and something called Sexy Poker.

In the U.S. market, Risen has been rated M (17+) by the ESRB. Australia, however, has no rating higher than MA15+, which means that any title judged not suitable for a 15-year-old is effectively banned. Australian gamers have been lobbying their government unsuccessfully for an R18+ rating for several years.

The classification refusal might not be the final word, however. Risen could be edited by its creators enough to slip by Australian censors. This approach has worked for other games, most recently Necrovision.

Risen is scheduled for October release on Xbox 360 and PC. The website R18+ is a useful source for information about the ongoing Australian content rating debate.

Developers of Sony's upcoming God of War III are concerned that the game's graphic violence may prompt a ban on sales of the game in the Australian market, reports Digital Life.

Australian censors have historically been tough on games featuring extreme violence. That's largely due to the lack of an R18+ rating Down Under. With Australia's highest rating currently at MA15+, any game not suitable for a 15-year-old is refused classification.

GoW III art director Sean Cunningham commented on the design team's worries over the game's Australian rating:

There is (concern). We try to push the boundaries a little bit. (But) we’ve had meetings and discussions and internally we all have a good gauge on what’s 'too far'.

You throw something past [content rating boards] and they might say 'Absolutely not! You could not do that!' and we’re all like: 'Aww, c’mon, that was a great idea!' There have been a couple of those…

Also visually, everyone’s really excited. The disembowelment of the centaur, ripping Helios’s head off, the reaction from the floor has been amazing. Everybody in the studio is very happy....

God of War III is due in 2010. As the first GoW game to appear on the PlayStation 3, the visual quality of its violent scenes will certainly be more intense than those found in the franchise's PS2 games.

Via: Kotaku

Thanks to: Australian GamePolitics reader Ryan for the tip!