Australia Reveals R18+ Video Game Guidelines 67
RagingMaxx writes "Is Australia finally ready to implement a video game rating system that allows for classification of adult games? Draft guidelines have been released by the federal government which allow 'virtually no restrictions on the treatment of themes,' and violence in games 'except where it offends against the standards of morality, decency and propriety.' Last month, South Australian Attorney General John Rau said that the state was finally ready to adopt the long-proposed R18+ adult rating for games, but only if the lower MA15+ rating is eliminated and all games in the category pushed into the new, higher rating. However, this new draft has both the R18+ and MA15+ ratings available together."
Re:By whos standards? (Score:4, Interesting)
This guideline offends my morality, decency and propriety.
With vauge crap like that why even have a rule...
Basically it's worded like this to bring it in line with the laws applying to other media. Bear in mind that government censorship of non-political speech is constitutionally legal in Australia, and applied to all commercially distributed media and some personal imports.
Wording the law like this is actually a good idea (if we have to have censorship at all), because it allows for the fluctuating standards of society. For example, the film Last Tango in Paris was originally "banned" (refused classification) in Australia because depicting two strangers having a sexual relationship without knowing each other's names or having any other social connection was considered morally reprehensible (this despite the fact that the film doesn't condone or glorify this in any way). In the 90s, the film was finally classified and distributed for public screening because the original arguments no longer represented the majority view of morality in Australian society.