Christians say No to R rated games

Whilst gamers welcome the current debate facing the nation’s Attorney Generals as to whether to apply a new 18+ R rated category to console games, the debate has created some unlikely bedfellows – with the pornography advocates Eros siding with the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) against the maneuvre.

Whilst gamers welcome the current debate facing the nation’s Attorney Generals as to whether to apply a new 18+ R rated category to console games, the debate has created some unlikely bedfellows – with the pornography advocates Eros siding with the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) against the maneuvre.

The Australian Attorney Generals’ Office met in Adelaide on Friday – amongst items on the agenda – the announcement of a public consultation process to decide whether an 18+ R Rated classification should be added to the current Video Game Classifications. Currently R Rated games are unavailable for sale in Australia.

Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said the consultation process would not deliver a final decision.
“This is not a consultation on a proposal to introduce an R18+ level for games,” said Debus. “It is a public consultation process seeking community views to inform our position.”

ACL managing director Jim Wallace was highly critical of the extension to classification guidelines saying:”Given what happens with R-rated films, we could have no confidence that the classification guidelines would be properly applied. What will happen if we have R18+ games, which have even greater impact because of their interactive nature?”

Meanwhile a spokesman for Eros stated “We support the Australian Christian Lobby’s point of view, because we believe that there’s too much violence out there and there are more pressing issues for the attorneys to consider such as the regulation of the X-rated film industry.”

Whilst the uninitiated may assume that introducing an R-rating for video games would suddenly allow adults to play games involving graphic violence, this notion is misleading. There are currently plenty of graphically violent games available to play that are rated MA 15+ (as this is our highest rating). The introduction of an R Rating may result in the reclassification of these games. Thus getting the games out of the hands of ‘impressionable teens’ and allowing the majority of gamers (who are statistically in their twenties) to have freedom of choice.

Written by Cec Busby

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