Video companies push to import R and X rated games
Violent video games have been directly linked to increased violence among game players in numerous studies and tragic examples. Yet Video Game companies are pushing for the removal of the MA15+ classification cut-off in favour of allowing the importation R and X rated games into the country. These games would contain graphic horror, violence rape and sex scenes.
Yet despite the many studies and examples of role game linked violence the proponents for the importing of R and X rated games argue that it is an individual’s right to watch or play whatever they want and that the repeated playing of such extreme acts will not lead to harmful effects on players’ beliefs or values.
Games of MA15+ classification already contain more than enough gore, violence and sexual images ( as pictured above) and the last thing Australian needs is extremely violent and explicit games feeding into youth and adults minds. If you are concerned about the impact these classification schemes could bring please go to www.nor18games.com.au to find out more and to write a short submission into the Classification review panel.
Andrew Hazelton publishes the www.nor18games.com.au website.
Also Andrew, while I’m in here being a responsible parent and 40 year old gamer…… what the hell is with you editig this game cover with a dodgy R18+ rating.
http://sites.google.com/site/notor18games/_/rsrc/1262782911308/home/Rapelay%20-%20Writing2.jpg
Your dishonesty astounds me.
(If I’m being harsh there….. maybe it’s not dishonesty but an utter cluelessness about our classification system. Fix your appauling web site)
Andrew, your website is pretty over the top and patently wrong in some areas.
X for games isn’t on the table at all. There will be no explicit sex in R18 games. Not a chance.
This on your site is so far wrong that some gamer discussion forums mistook your site for a parody site:
” An example of a currently banned game that would be allowed into Australia is a Japanese creation where the player is encouraged to gang rape and beat young women. ”
Rapelay isn’t sold in other countries that have an adult game category. Stating that it would go on sale in Australia is one of the biggest porkies I’ve seen ever. Can you really imagine that a country that doesn’t allow strip poker on the shelves will start selling a rape role play game. That’s just complete nonsense.
Also instead of the usual lazy “many studies show” to support the wild claims on your site, some actual references would be nice.
I believe that aside from being the publisher of http://www.nor18games.com.au Andrew and Emma Hazelton are coordinators for the ACL in WA. (Happy to be corrected on that if I’m wrong).
The Conservative Party and religious supporters have knowingly and intentionally used a game such as Rapelay to mislead and deceive many in society in defense of their arguments. We need to keep pointing out that the dishonorable, unethical, and immoral acts of lying to and deceiving others, not to mention directly training children to commit these acts in the real world is sick, obscene, and the true act of immoral individuals.
Rapelay would NEVER have even been offered for classification because, commercially, the game was never offered for commercial sale outside of Japan.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/267258
A few Independant sellers attempted to sell used copies online, and perhaps even a few “new” copies, under the guise of “used”. But those were illegal sales to begin with, ratings classified or not.
Therefore, holding up Rapelay as a game that would be offered up to be classified is false and fraudulent (fraud includes lying and deceiving others for the purpose of depriving individuals of a Right (Freedom of Expression in this case), and not just lies and deceit to scam someone out of property of finances) in their efforts and they should be held accountable for their dishonorable, unethical, immoral acts.
Andrew
Absolutely. In one of my posts I called for Mr Hazelton to fix his dodgy website.
Now that I think about it maybe it’s better if he just leaves it as is. The places I could find it linked:
* Here
* A post by Andrew Hazelton promoting the site in Andrew Bolt’s blog comments
* A heap of gamer websites. Many of those thought it was a satirical parody of something like the ACL make a stand site, to stir gamers into action
It’s been discredited for what it is here and at Bolt’s blog.
Also I suspect that a in an attempt to whip up maximum fear and moral panic, Hazelton may actually trigger those against R18 to write submissions that are considered invalid or counted as supportive.
It’s not just a vote counting exercise. They read the submissions. If Andrew’s site triggers submissions saying….. “I’m against R18 for games because I don’t want X rated games or violent rape games sold here” Awesome! Since that’s not going to happen chalk one up for the supporting argument or as null and neutral because they wrote about something unrelated to the proposal.
So Mr Hazelton, please ignore my call to fix your site. Leave it as it is. Broken links and all. You’re doing a great job at moving us towards a R18+ category thanks.
Andrew Hazelton wrote:
There is strong community concern about the impact of violent video games on children’s development. Many games force the child to identify with the aggressor and children are rewarded for immoral conduct and violent behavior. Research shows that increased playing of violent first person shooter games can significantly increase aggression.(1)
(1) Bartlett, CP et al (2007) “Longer you play, the more hostile you feel: examination of first person shooter video games and aggression during video game play”, Aggressive Behavior, 33(6), 486-497.
*********
Do I need to read the study? I’m entitled to say “so what”; people FEEL more aggressive after a lot of things. Every passionate AFL supporter has a “love to hate” team that they want to kick to the curb.
Games created, by the developers own admission, strictly for adults, are being distributed in this country with an MA15+ rating. This is the only thing the lack of an RA18+ rating in Australia for video games is achieving. Congratulations.
Then this also means that the games classification board is not doing its job correctly if it means that games that are too violent for MA15+ are getting through as MA15+. To use that as an argument to bring in an R18+ game classification is crazy. Games that are too violent or explicit for the MA15+ classification should not be sold at all.
If we allowed a R18+ classification, would that mean that games that should be in the X18+ classification would be slipping in as R18+? All the more reason NOT to have a R18+ classification.
Andrew, no that does not mean that the classification board is not doing it’s job correctly. They take it seriously. What they put in our MA15+ fits our guidelines for that category.
It’s reasonable that along with R18+ category we may need a review or rework of MA15+ to ensure better control of sale to minors.
Game developers have said that they didn’t intend their games for children.
Some of the games that are in our MA15 category are in an adult only category in other countries. I don’t see how lobbying against R18 helps children. It seems pretty counter productive to me.
From a 40 year old gamer with kids in a Christian school actively involved in that community, who is rather pissed off at wowser extremists wanting to force all adults into a children’s world. You’re not helping promote personal responsibility IMO.
What is sad here is that those in the Conservative Party, claiming to be the morally superior, have, in fact, advocated lies, deceit, misinformation, dishonor, a lack of ethics, and signs of immorality.
It’s a shame that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights fell to Anti-Freedom of Speech/Expression forces and corruption. Otherwise, Australia would be in serious violation of Article 19. No, not merely because of the censorship of video/computer games. But because one of the opposing forces to R18+ and supporters of Anti-Freedom of Speech actually enacted a law prohibiting the Free Expression of opposing political opinion. These two events are, in fact, only the tip of the iceberg for the likes of Michael Atkinson and the Conservative Party as it applies to Freedom of Speech/Expression in general, not merely focused on one type of Expression. Had Article 19 not, in effect, fallen to such similar foces, Australia could face sanctions for such violations. Atkinson’s desire for said law had NOTHING to do with the value or lack thereof of anonymous comments. It had to do with the fact that those making anonymous comments had been known to make intelligent counterarguments and, not having any intelligent retorts, or even unintelligent ones, wanted to identify his opposition and retaliate. Atkinson wanted to “put on trial” the SPEAKER, rather than deal with the ISSUES specifically. Throwing out a smoke screen by getting the audience to focus on the SPEAKER, and ignore the actual discussion as he isn’t competent to actually speak intelligently on the issues at hand.
The Truth, The WHOLE Truth, And Nothing But The Truth. This is an oath the is taken by some in the judicial system. But, usually, not taken by the officials (counsel, judge, etc), or by journalists or by politicians. Lucky for those such as Atkinson and the author of this article and of the website being referred to. There would be serious sanctions that could be brought against all those as well.
Here are some FACTS that Atkinson, the religious gorups, and even the Conservative Party as a whole don’t want to face:
As pointed out by another comment, research into any of the issues surrounding media exposure has been poorly performed, incomplete, and even had their results intentionally misrepresented by those with agendas.
In such research, the individual is taken out of the equation. Meaning that the extreme complexities that make up an individual are excluded from the data and, hence, excluded from being recognized as a part of the formula that leads to the result. Genetic predisoposition, life experiences, mental predisposition, present emotional and mental conditions of the individual, level of interest and competency in any aspect of the stimuli the subject is exposed to, and many other aspects need to be taken into consideration to understand why any specific individual reacts to any given situation.
This is not being done.
Additionally, there is NO factual evidence in existance that interactive entertainment or exposure to ANYTHING that allows interactive participation has a clear definitive difference than non-interactive exposure.
Indeed, the contrary is true. Evidence:
Look at various riots over time that took place due to preceived injustices. Let’s take the Rodney King beating from a decade or so back.
How many individuals ACTUALLY were present and involved during the actual beating?
How many individuals did NOT riot afterwards? Were they desensitized and, therefore, did not react?
How many took part in the riot after watching the video on TV once? Or saw it over and over?
How many only read about it in a newspaper (with or without still images)?
How many only heard about it through word of mouth and joined the riot?
Next example to think on:
Sporting events. Either contact or non-contact sports. There are plenty to do research on. How many of the spectators jump up and down either in favor of a team or in opposition of a team? They aren’t playing in the sport, so they aren’t interactive with it. Some spectators just sit there. Some jump up and down.
And some get into fights with either the players or even other spectators. In addition, there HAVE been reports of fans, and even players, committing violent acts before or after games.
Another example:
There ARE many games that children themselves play that DO have violent content. These games have not been limited to the last couple of decades, but centuries, even thousands of years.
Children always find a reason to pick up a stick and, depending on the era and what is well known happening in society, will use the stick, or some other object to “compete” with other children.
“Cowboys and Indians”
“Cops and Robbers”
“Yankees vs the Confederates”
Even playing swords of one nation vs another from even the Roman times.
And, at some point, when playing these violent games, someone HAS to be the “bad guy” (and, of course, the “bad guy” is subjective). And the “bad guy” HAS to win from time to time. Else, why play?
Someone mentioned somewhere about asking supporters of R18+ ratings what the “benefits” of having certain content in certain materials was.
The answer, in relation to material that is focused on a fictional foundation such as video/computer games, books, movies, etc, is this: It is neither “benefitial” or “detrimental”. The content is relevant to the context it is included in which is relevant to the overall genre and context of the overall product. Asking what “benefit” the content has is actually a veiled question of what “benefit” the content has to the person asking the question. If the question is not answered to the satisfaction of the person asking the question (and the question CAN’T be answered to their satisfaction as they have already determined that the material is of no benefit to them, the person asking the question), then the content must not be of “benefit” at all, and therefore, does not belong in the material at all.
It simply comes down to the fact that we, as a society, are NOT required to like or dislike the exact same things as individuals. I am not required to like, dislike, participate or not participate in, desire, be offended by, or share the exact same characteristics that other individuals do. And the same is true in the opposite.
In Freedom of Speech, feel free to like or dislike something. Like your kind of music. Your kind of books. Your kind of religion. Your kind of genres within any form of media. And so on. But, under NO circumstance do you, or anyone else, have the Right to dictate what is or is not appropriate for someone else or someone else’s children.
Your/My Rights end where someone else’s begin.
For the record, these statements are true regardless of who I am. Regardless of what politics I follow. Regardless of what nation I’m from. Regardless of whether I be a Saint, Limbo bound, the Devil incarnate, or joe-schmo.
There is plenty more to say on this subject in opposition to the likes of Atkinson and many others. Even the supposed false claims of “links” between exposure to video/computer games and real world violence can be disputed very easily. Moreover, using comparison and contrast and comments used by the likes of Atkinson and other members of the religious and Conservative communities, I could wonder why censorship is being heavily used on religious documentation and interactive services. Atkinson and other have claimed the recognition that only a bare few in the gamer community have committed criminal acts, but that censorship and violation the Freedom of Expression Rights of the WHOLE community is justifiable to protect the children/society. If this is so, and considering how many atrocities in just the last few decades have been committed by various religious groups, INCLUDING Christianity, one wonders why laws banning children from being exposed to ANY religion, including Christianity, hasn’t occurred.
After all, many claim that those who commit such atrocities (such as teaching bigotry and hate, advocating verbal, mental, physical, and/or sexual abuse against others, including children, and even religious leaders committing various abuses against even children) are the tiny minority. But, certainly, if we use Atkinson’s argument about protecting the whole of society from the few by depriving the many of their Rights, then he, and the Conservative and religious communities, would support protecting society, including children, from the harm being done by religions.
After all, fictional content, such as in vidoe/computer games, fictional books, fictional movies, etc, only say these things are happening/can be done here in the fictional world. While the religions are directly teaching that the bigotry, hate, abuse, and other acts are how one real person should treat another real person.
One would have to wonder about Atkinson’s, the Conservative party’s, and the religious community’s “morals” considering that such protection of society has NOT occurred. Perhaps they think that their religious beliefs are more important than protecting society, including children.
According to According to the National Classification Code an RC (Refused Classification) rating is automatically awarded to Publications, Films and Computer games that:
“depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified”
An R18+ for computer games will not change this.
Misinformation.
>>”Video Game companies are pushing for the removal of the MA15+ classification cut-off in favour of allowing the importation R and X rated games into the country.”
Wrong.
>>”These games would contain graphic horror, violence rape and sex scenes.”
Wrong.
Andrew, your entire argument is basically factually incorrect. You might want to actual research what is being proposed.
I think a retraction should be posted.
There is a lot of misinformation in this article. The only reason there is so much gore and what-have-you in MA15+ is that we have no R18+ category for these games to go into, so rather than banning a hefty portion of commercial games, our standards for MA15+ are more relaxed than countries with R18+.
The only thing that would change with the introduction of an R18+ category is that half the games that would otherwise be MA15+ would now be R18+, and the games that are truly only suitable for adults would now be in R18+ and not RC.
Just because we get R18+ it doesn’t mean that all RC is now R18+, it just means that stuff that is only suitable for adults has a category, rather than only allowing content into this country that is suitable for 15 year olds.
Can you name a single game that features the player committing sexual assault other than Rapelay, which no one has attempted to sell in Australia and likely never would?
There are a number of factual errors and incorrect assumptions in this article.
1. Game companies (and not just companies but also retailers and the general public) are not pushing for the inclusion of an X rating, just an R.
2. R rated games do not include rape, such content exceeds the limits of an R rating and would still be banned
3. Many studies into video game violence are criticized on methodological grounds, their inability to test long term effects, and their lack of comparison to other types of media (or aggressive sports). Furthermore, The Byron Report (referenced in the discussion paper), which analysed the findings of many of these studies found the results to be highly polarised. For every study that links video game aggression to real world aggression, there are just as many that find no link at all.
4. MA15+ games do indeed contain large amounts of gore and violence, but it is important to note that more than half of games classified MA15+ in 2009 were rated R18 or equivalent overseas. Many people argue that our lack of an R rating means adult games are often squeezed into the MA category, effectively making them available to children. An R rating would allow for proper separation of adult content (which is already in Australia) from that which is acceptable for minors.
I thought conservatives supported capitalism? Why do conservatives in both America and Australia choose to bash video games?
Both Conservatives and Liberals have tried to restrict videogames at one time or another. And not all conservatives are against videogames.
Dingo may be going to the extreme but he is still right.
Not even needing to go to extremities, the right to purchase R18 games and the like should not be threatened. Censorship and banning of perturbed games such as the Japanese one as well should not be allowed. There is no crime in reading a book so there shouldn’t be for playing a game. If you really want me to cite my sources I can, but as games have increased in possession along with strength of content, crime has still been shown to decrease. The myths of the effects of games is the same as that of pornography. The states in America with the most pornography have the lowest crime rates. Its self evident – playing a game isn’t a crime.
Consumer choice is what should dictate what material the consumer uses. There are no studies that I am aware of that even in existence that show a definitive and unmistakable connection between virtual reality effecting the actions of people in reality.
Desensitization is inevitable but the physical and real actions of rape and murder are actions that only mentally unstable people commit. It is a breach of the individual freedom of expression, speech, consumer choice and a myriad of other liberties to ban and destroy such games. Child pornography and live footage of murder and rape etc, have been proven to excite the mental problems of those who find such material entertaining – BUT ONLY THOSE PEOPLE, and they commit crimes almost immediately after.
You name me one rapist or murderer that practiced and adopted his love for such living actions from a video game, name me JUST ONE and then we can consider banning such material.
There is strong community concern about the impact of violent video games on children’s development. Many games force the child to identify with the aggressor and children are rewarded for immoral conduct and violent behavior. Research shows that increased playing of violent first person shooter games can significantly increase aggression.(1)
(1) Bartlett, CP et al (2007) “Longer you play, the more hostile you feel: examination of first person shooter video games and aggression during video game play”, Aggressive Behavior, 33(6), 486-497.
Force the child?
For starters, nobody is ‘forced’ to play a video game. Ever.
Secondly, it is up to parents to stop children from playing games inappropriate to their age level.
Next.
You do realise that your arguments fall flat when you say things like this:
“There is strong community concern about the impact of violent video games on children’s development.”
There may be, but an R-rating is there to STOP children from getting their hands on inappropriate material. Right now, if a game is refused classification due to a lack of an R-rating, the maker goes away, makes the minimum of required changes, and resubmits it, thus getting it approved. Suddenly a game that is still mostly inappropriate for a child gets away with an MA-15+, whereas before it would have been labelled R18 and impossible to buy for a child.
Now, if a parent looks at the packaging of a re-rated game and goes “Oh, MA-15, yeh, that sounds not too bad, kids are getting in to see movies like that.” and buys a game that mostly should not be played by children. Tadah, nice job.
If you have an R-rating, games are labelled appropriately, parents are informed, and shops will not sell the games to underage kids.
I’m a 42 year old adult who can make informed choices about the games he wants to play.
This is not about rape games, not about violent games, etc. this is about YOU imposing your moral values on all australians. No, thanks.
Mr. Hazelton, according to Wai Yen Tang, the Bartlett study mentioned several limitations:
* Their measure for physiological arousal is not reliable.
* Did not control participants’ playing experience with the game used (Time Crisis 3) or whether the participants had previous experience with real guns.
* Did not include video game experience and performance as a control factor.
* The validity for assessing frustration and hostility in this study is a problem .
* Aggression measure has not been previously used, so validity and reliability is a problem. Although in previous studies, researchers had used similar measures.
Link to Wai Yen Tang’s assessment: http://vgresearcher.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/longer-you-play-the-more-hostile-you-feel-examination-of-first-person-shooter-video-games-and-aggression-during-video-game-play-barlett-et-al-2007/
It’s my educated assessment, but not an expert assessment since I don’t have a PhD (consider me as a lay expert on the subject). There are many media experts (in psychology and other field) in Australia that can provide vital information regarding this issue.
Please cite the ‘numerous studies’ mentioned in the article.
The government is so effective and efficient in achieving what it sets out…yeah right… Do we really want to give them the thin edge of the wedge in controlling what we see, read, watch and play?
Do taxpayers want to fund an army of public servants playing R and X rated games, classifying them? Or and army of public servants to review yet more paperwork?
If the Australian Conservative website wants to promote censorship of electronic media, are you ready to be shut down by Rudd and his cronies because they would contend that this is some kind of right wing hate site as it is against Unions, AGW, economic fraud etc etc?
It seems foolish to invite Government to create the chains of censorship by which it can tie you down.
Do we want to follow the lead of Soviet Russia, China, North Korea, Nazi Germany, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe etc where the Government controls what citizens can watch or read (or play)?
It is not sensible to go to extremities’ to try to add weight to an argument. Saying that by blocking filthy R18+ Video games will lead us to being like Nazi Germany or communist North Korea is crazy.
The government already sensors what we watch and already forbids bestiality, child pornography and hard inciting material as well as material from certain political and religious (read: banned terrorist) groups. Our government does this with the approval of the general public, whilst maintaining a free press. It does it because it knows that some media material is harmful to society and individuals.
You are like the individuals decrying racism/oppression when the government bans pornography in certain remote communities even though it does it to try to decrease the number of children being raped there. Every responsible government must have a line where they say “censorship”. You are confusing democracy and political freedom with anarchy and your ill-fitting comparison to North Korea and Nazi Germany shows up your poor history knowledge and your lack of a logical argument.
The worst part about censorship is ***************
Every dictatorship needs to control the press. The dictators usually make it top of their list when seeking power.
Any censorship that is not about an individual’s right not to be subject to libel or slander is a form of thought-policing.
You speak of bestiality and child pornography – and about 50 years ago homosexual pornography would have been in the same catergory.
There is no absolute way to make sure censorship doesn’t go too far.
Dingo are you advocating that bestiality and child pornography will in 50 years be considered to be of the same category as homosexual pornography (i.e. X category)?
If so we have different visions for Australia’s future.
I don’t see huge problems with a simple blacklist limited to specific categories such as the above, which fall outside the existing X category. They are in all cases, completely objectionable and indefensible.
The problems are twofold. First the extension of the blacklist to include other criminal or political matters like incitement to violence. There is a real danger of censorship creep, on these matters the blacklist should only include sites subject to a court order with the option for judicial appeal/review.
Second the fact that the blacklist is not transparent, when every other censored medium is. We know which films or T.V. shows are refused classification, we will not know which websites are blacklisted or why. The reason, and it belies the pointlessness of any blacklist, is that a public blacklist would just provide a list of websites for which any simple internet proxy will be able to bypass, and all that’s accomplished is the tax payer funded distribution of illegal pornography through a list of links.
Perhaps the solution would be to have a secret blacklist for material so objectionable and serious that it is to be banned under all circumstances, like bestiality and child pornography. And have a public blacklist for other objectionable material, with the option for judicial review, or as per existing censorship practice.
An example of a website would could be unjustly banned would be LiveLeak. It started as a collection of gore videos under the Ogrish website, a perfect candidate for the blacklist due to violence and incitement to violence. Now it serves as an invaluable first hand news source for amateur and professional video from around the world, especially during moments of political turmoil and protest, as shown during the recent Iranian, Tibetan and Xinjiang troubles. Despite still hosting objectionable video on the grounds of violence, Australia would be less informed and poorer if sites like LIveLeak were secretly blacklisted. The decision to view such material, should be with the adult internet user, not a government bureaucrat.
“Perhaps the solution would be to have a secret blacklist for material so objectionable and serious that it is to be banned under all circumstances, like bestiality and child pornography”
Uh, didn’t we already have that (ACMA’s Blacklist), and didn’t it leak three times on Wikileaks last year? Luckily there was no child porn on any of the lists, but it clearly shows why government departments compiling “worst of the worst” is such a bad idea.
“Perhaps the solution would be to have a secret blacklist for material so objectionable and serious that it is to be banned under all circumstances, like bestiality and child pornography.”
No, that stuff is illegal. The police pursue the perpetrators. If you came across such a web site, then you should report it to the AFP. Bugger letting ACMA know about it – this is somethign the “boys in blue” should be handling.
Anyway, this diverges from your argument about R18+ games, of which many of your points have already been disproven and so I won’t repeat.