Australia to Get R18+ Rating, Reducing Need For Censorship

There's good news for Australian games, as GameSpot AU is reporting the government has declared intentions to implement an R18+ rating before the end of the year.

If you're a publisher developing a violent video game and have intentions of releasing said game in Australia, there's a good chance you'll have to bend over backwards to do so.

Valve was forced to modify Left 4 Dead 2 (they actually released the already modified German version of the game, as Germany has similar restrictions), and select scenes from Silent Hill: Homecoming's were altered to fall in line with the country's strict guidelines.

Games cannot receive an R18+ classification in Australia, the rough equivalent of an M-rating from the ESRB. If a game is deemed to fall into R18+ territory, the game's straight up banned. Gaming advocates have highlighted the hypocrisy of this logic, given that movies can be given the R18+ classification.

There's a solid list of games that have fallen into trouble with the Australian approach to classifying games on Wikipedia, highlighting the bevy of games that just never ended up coming out there.

There's good news for Australian games, as GameSpot AU is reporting the government has declared intentions to implement an R18+ rating before the end of the year.

If you're a publisher developing a violent video game and have intentions of releasing said game in Australia, there's a good chance you'll have to bend over backwards to do so.

Valve was forced to modify Left 4 Dead 2 (they actually released the already modified German version of the game, as Germany has similar restrictions), and select scenes from Silent Hill: Homecoming's were altered to fall in line with the country's strict guidelines.

Games cannot receive an R18+ classification in Australia, the rough equivalent of an M-rating from the ESRB. If a game is deemed to fall into R18+ territory, the game's straight up banned. Gaming advocates have highlighted the hypocrisy of this logic, given that movies can be given the R18+ classification.

There's a solid list of games that have fallen into trouble with the Australian approach to classifying games on Wikipedia, highlighting the bevy of games that just never ended up coming out there.

Great news for the Aussies.

Wow its 2011 and they just did this?

Congratulations Australia.

Think of the Children.

Congratulations to all the Aussies on here, a long overdue change but glad it's happened.

The funny thing is that Australia now has a higher rating capable of being sold in stores than we do. :|

/clap

The funny thing is that Australia now has a higher rating capable of being sold in stores than we do. :|

I never understood the Left 4 Dead 2 fiasco. Couldn't you Australians just bought it on Steam? Playing those games on PC is really the only way to play them. 
 
Regardless though, this is great news.

@PlasmaBeam44: Nay, since if Valve released the original, violent version of L4D knowing that those restrictions were in place, they would have been charged for disobeying the law and that might lead to a permanent ban of their other games being sold on Australia, retail or digital.

  Let the consumers decide what they want, not the government.  A step in the right direction for sure.  God I hate censorship...

You are now men.

@THAfara0 said:

Wow its 2011 and they just did this?

Yup, it sucks. Part of the problem has been that changes to the classification system in this country require a unanimous vote from each state's Attorney General at one of their infrequent meetings (yes, it's as stupid as it sounds). Until recently any progress had always been thwarted by one or two holdouts. The Attorney General of New South Wales opted to abstain from voting on the issue, but it looks like that's purely because he has only very recently taken office and not necessarily because he is against the implementation of the new rating. Brendan O'Connor, the federal government's minister for home affairs - who has been pushing for progress on this matter over the last couple of years - appears certain that NSW will be on board and that Australia will likely have an R18+ rating before the year is up.

There's yet to be any guarantee that the R18+ rating will prevent the odd game like Mortal Kombat or Left 4 Dead 2 being banned in future, it could just mean a bunch of content that normally would be rated MA15+ in Australia but is typically given an 18+ rating overseas is more appropriately rated. That would still be a change for the better, but I won't feel like celebrating until a) the new rating is actually implemented and b) it's shown that the R18+ rating isn't just a different coloured sticker for select games.

@PlasmaBeam44 said:

I never understood the Left 4 Dead 2 fiasco. Couldn't you Australians just bought it on Steam? Playing those games on PC is really the only way to play them. Regardless though, this is great news.

What I don't understand is why all Steam users don't make USA accounts. I could be completely ignorant here - maybe there is some region detection in place, but the new game price favors the US dollar so heavily it doesn't make sense not to do it. i.e. charging 30 pounds/Euros/yen for a 30 dollar game is ridiculous.

GoG.com had a pretty cool thing going for the Witcher 2 preorder - Europeans would pay 50 Euros but then GoG would credit them the difference between that and US$50. Nice of them.

once again....a gamespot link.........sigh......

@PlasmaBeam44: when you bought it, you got a gimped censored version. Me and my mates got round it by having a friend in the UK gift us copies which got us the uncensored version. WE all just paid him back in Steam games. Good deal.

once again....a gamespot link.........sigh......

I could be completely ignorant here - maybe there is some region detection in place, but the new game price favors the US dollar so heavily it doesn't make sense not to do it. i.e. charging 30 pounds/Euros/yen for a 30 dollar game is ridiculous.

Hell, it's about time. I've been away from Australia for the last 4 years but I've felt sorry for my brothers and sisters back home numerous times. Now if it can advance from must intention to implementation that will be fantastic.

Glad to hear it!

Sweet.

About fucking time.

@Sinful said:

once again....a gamespot link.........sigh......

Gamespot's Australian contingent have provided the best coverage of the issue out there, I believe. To some extent I think they've really helped prod the issue along by clinging somewhat tenaciously to it with regular interviews with Brendan O'Connor and other parties involved.

Great news for Australia!

@THAfara0: Yeah well.... you're from a place where you can't urinate in a canal unless you're pregnant. Yeah... you think about that.

:P

Think of the Children.

@Sinful said:

once again....a gamespot link.........sigh......

It's been almost four years since Gerstmanngate. It's been three years since Giant Bomb was founded. Let go of the hate, friend. :)
 

OH
 
 
MY
 
 
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD
FUCKING YES! FINALLY HOLY SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK YES! 
 
I'm a little stoked about this....

I'm confused. When he says if a game gets it they're banned, that means more "if a game would get the 18+ rating, its banned" but since it doesn't quite exist for games right now that's what this hopes to change?

A step in the right direction. Maybe that convict colony can be modernized after all. ;)

This is awesome for Australians. Now if only your games wouldn't cost a brazillion dollars each.

" Finally, kangaroos can play uncut Left 4 Dead 2." 
 
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Its yet to be seen if this is going to change anything...like previously mentioned, all it will be is a renaming of the MA15 rating, but still with the same restrictions....and further it will hurt sales and probably increase prices as family friendly places where it will be sold ie EBgames, target, kmart etc , might not want.. R rated games in access... to minors..

It's great for our system to at be last catching up to the changing consumer market that purchases video games. On another note it has also been interesting to see US views on our ratings structure here in Australia and how anti Goverment controlled ratings a few views have been. Different culture I guess.

Think of the Children.

Finally.

About fuckin' time. There will be some gamers popping mountain dew corks in Oz tonight..

Good news for our Australian bro's. I am happy for them, just a shame it took this long.

@Sinful said:

@Deusoma said:

@Sinful said:

once again....a gamespot link.........sigh......

It's been almost four years since Gerstmanngate. It's been three years since Giant Bomb was founded. Let go of the hate, friend. :)

Time passing does not mean it never happen. :)

I just got a reply notification for this comment string even though it has nothing to do with me. Weird.

Finally. Progress.

Great news!

Great news for our friends from the land down under!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

R18+ does not equal american M, american M is equal to australian MA, if M equaled R then every game would be banned in australia, call of duty, god of war and grand theft auto are all released with no alterations from their US versions only games with very, very high levels of violence have been banned in the past (fallout 3 was an exception as it was banned for drug content if i remember correctly). also games such as indigo prophecy, which was edited in the US, was not in austraila.

this is good for gamers, assuming sony and microsoft allow R rated games to be released on their systems and retailers stock them, but people need to stop pretending that australia is some backwards, prudish country because it requires a small number of games to be edited for release, the imaged of game censorship in australia has been blown completely out of proportion.

@Sinful said:

@Deusoma said:

@Sinful said:

once again....a gamespot link.........sigh......

It's been almost four years since Gerstmanngate. It's been three years since Giant Bomb was founded. Let go of the hate, friend. :)

Time passing does not mean it never happen. :)

I just got a reply notification for this comment string even though it has nothing to do with me. Weird.

Hopefully this means games will get cheaper, too! 100$ for a game is insane. INSANE, I tell ya.

"If you're a publisher developing a violent video game and have intentions of releasing said game in Australia, there's a good chance you'll have to bend over backwards to do so."            
 
This isn't true, a good chance? Really? Come on. People seem to think that every 3rd game gets banned here or something.

Bend over backwards...when you really think about, that makes no sense. How do you bend over backwards? Is it like leaning back reeeeeally far? Eh? Eh? Am I right? This thing working?

So what else is going on?

Finally