Just announced in Australia (you know the only nation in the world whose rating system caps of at 15 years of age for gaming) that the South Australian bored of classification will be removing its MA15+ rating and replacing it with an adult rating R18+.
Whist I agree that about 15% of MA15+ games should be given an R18+ rating the vast majority of these games should be placed firmly within the MA15+ rating with a few barely mature enough to make the MA15+ rating in the first place. You can be sure that with the scraping of the rating that NO games will recieve a lesser rating.
The man responsible for this decision Attorney-General John Rau claims that this way game companies will be forced to either aim video games at kids or adults.
The first point I want to make is that the content appropriate for a sixteen year old is different to that of an eight year old witch the government of south australia seems to know given that it still has the MA15+ rating for movies/music.
Secondly a previous point made by John Rau that the current rating system was to confusing for parents is ridiculous. Its VERY simple MA15+ suitable for ages 15+ whilst R18+ is suitable for ages 18+. Does Attorney-General John Rau think South Australians are incapable of basic math?
Thirdly moving content into a rating higher than it deserves denies people content that is appropriate for them is quite simply WRONG and a violation of free speech. The MA15+ rating was introduced to deal with games/movies not suitable for kids but quite suitable for teens after popular movie Crocodile Dundee was rated R18+.
In a perfect world the rating system would have a rating for every year up to eighteen but seeing as how that would be too costly too implement nowadays we just need to stop our rating systems from sliding backwards like John Rau intends.
PS: Personally i think Australia should just adopt the PEGI rating system for video games once and for all.
PSWii
