Games R18+ cleared for take-off but still on runway

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 10 August 2011 22:20

Your IT - Entertainment

With NSW finally giving its 'in-principle' support to R18+ ratings for games after the recent SCAG meeting saw South Australia give its support and NSW end up as the new roadblock on the runway, but while it's now clear, gamers are still waiting.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Luke Skywalker overcame the injustices in his civilisation, striking down the Dark Side of the Force with a Jedi's righteousness, bringing peace and sanity back to a weary empire of worlds blighted by the darkest sides of Government oppression.

Fast forward a long time into the future in the Milky Way galaxy on a small, blue, mostly harmless planet, plenty of moral panic has impeded the gamers of Australia from engaging in their own virtual battles as others on planet Earth have done for years.

While the children everyone's been thinking of have been 'protected' by government ratings, those over the age of 18, which today happens to be a large proportion of law-abiding Australians, are still denied the cutting edge gaming content being offered to people in the US, still the greatest western freedom-loving democracy on the planet.

Thankfully, this previous content censorship looks finally set to fall, with NSW having taken the time to get past its initial post-election-win settling in phase, and having given its 'in-principle support' to the R18+ game rating, as reported earlier today in an insightful article by the ABC Technology and Games' Nick Ross. 

Mr Ross' article reprinted a statement that the Attorney General's department issued to the ABC, which states, in part, that: 'The NSW Government has given its formal support for the introduction of an R18+ classification for computer games, according to Attorney General, Greg Smith SC.

'Mr Smith said he would work with other Attorneys General on draft national guidelines that have been developed for a new ratings system. It would be important, he said, to ensure any proposal was in line with Federal and State Ministers' agreement to not dilute Australia's Refused Classification category.'

So, while this means the R18+ rating is fuelled up and ready for take-off, there's still a whole lotta government cogs to turn before the new ratings system is churned out, let alone is able to soar like a F18-powered eagle across the virtual skies of an amazing multitude of cyber gaming worlds switched on and entered into by people everyday, all across our wide, brown and massively-multiplaying land.

Snatching victory from the jaws of previous censors is nearly upon us, with but the glacial pace of legislative and government change the only challenge left in Australia's greatest gaming challenge of them all: reaching the R18+ flag and saving the world/empire/galaxy/universe in all its R18+ glory once and for all!