Not Thinking of the Adults

Forget Jack Thompson. Australia has its own game hater, and he's in power.

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By Nathan Davis on 30 October, 2008

ABC NewsMichael Atkinson: Pushing the 'adult gamers can suck it' agenda.Gamers were once dominated by children, but in Australia, these ‘children’ are now hitting the average age of thirty. This statistic [PDF] is closely reflected right around the world. When the average age of an industry increases, it only makes good business sense to refocus the target, and this is why games are increasingly targeting adults. Unfortunately, we don’t have an adult rating. We’re stuck with a draconian classification system that maxes out at MA15+.

Here, it’s a legal requirement that all films, computer games, and certain publications are classified prior to sale – otherwise, they can’t be sold – and the policies behind this classification are governed by our attorney-general’s department. Considering this, and the demonstrable increase in age of the average gamer, why isn’t our classification system permitted to recognise our existence?

The audiences of every other form of entertainment are recognised here, and basically every other developed country now offers a game rating system that includes their adults. But adult Australian gamers are swept under the mat like a nuisance pile of dirt. This is further made ridiculous considering this doesn’t reflect the views of the greater Australian populace. According to the latest research published by the IEAA, “91% of adults (including gamers and non-gamers) say Australia should have an R18+ classification for games.”

In fact, most politicians that have the power to introduce a more inclusive games classification system – the attorneys-general – agree, often citing that other forms of media already have it, so games should too. Unfortunately, even though we supposedly live in a democratic society, ‘most’ isn’t enough.

So, who’s the tyrant throwing a spanner in the works of progression? Well, you can thank the ignorant mindset of one politician who’s willing to cast aside the hard evidence – the South Australian attorney-general, Michael Atkinson.

He thinks we are not worth the possible risk of hypothetical children maybe getting their hands on a copy of the latest game that was designed for adults. Forget the risk of kids seeing the significantly more realistic gore and horror in R18+ films or the raunchy pages of bare skin throughout newsagents nationwide – if it involves pressing a button to pull a fake bag over a fake head, or some simulated fake sexy time, or even some fake performance-enhancing fake-pills, this unfounded risk is far greater for the minister for justice, Mr. Atkinson.

Not sure where the justice is, but as the self-appointed minister for rainbow-farting and parenthood, he’s performing marvellously.

Of course, he isn’t doing much for his cause, packed with feces as it may be – if a game isn’t sold here, or if it’s been watered down in some way, gamers will take their cash and flock to overseas stores. Hurrah for the internet. But this doesn’t do much to fix the larger issue at hand – our quite broken games classification system has evolved into a form of implicit censorship, as it’s ham-fistedly forced to label our favourite adult games as unsuitable for anyone.

So, it comes as no surprise that Atkinson has gone and thrown another wonky spanner in the works. This time, he’s withdrawn his support for a drafted discussion paper and a resulting consultation with the Australian public on the matter of an adult games rating. The drafted paper purportedly discusses the positive and negative effects that the introduction of an adult rating would have. We can only assume it blankly stated the facts about Australian gamers, because as a result of Atkinson pulling his support, not only can we not view the document, his actions further stave off any chance we’ll see an R18+ rating in the near future.

If you’d like to do something about it, head over to the Electronic Frontiers Australia’s recently launched R18+ campaign website and get writing to your state’s attorney-general. Let them know (politely) exactly how it feels to be overlooked by the broken classification system.

In the end, though, I think it’s great that one person can still have such a staggering effect. I also want a job where I can tell the citizens what they want rather than listen to them.

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