Industry Group: Australia “Out of Touch” Over Game Ratings

The Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (iGEA) has submitted its thoughts on the introduction of an R18+ rating in Australia. The document, which you can read here, features arguments for the introduction of an adult rating as well as background information about the issue.

The report was submitted to the attorney-general’s office for the R18+ debate and features many of the arguments already introduced by gamers and critics. The document describes Australia as ‘œout of touch with the rest of the world’ in videogame classification, stating that the R18+ rating is needed to ensure the Australian videogames industry can respond to changes in ‘œconsumer usage and demand’, as well be able to ‘œcater to the rising age of… videogame players [and] allowing adult gamers to be treated as such’.

The report follows the introduction of a questionnaire by the Australian Government which attempts to gauge the opinion of the public. The main opposition to the adult rating is South Australian attorney-general Michael Atkinson, who has previously stated the only people who want an R18+ rating are ‘œzealous gamers’. However, the iGEA has published statistics that claim a large majority of Australians want the R18+ rating implemented. Citing three separate polls, including one from the Australian newspaper publisher News Limited in which 95.5% of respondents want the adult rating.

In the document, the iGEA mentions various ‘œincorrect assumptions’ that Australian videogame policy has been based on in the past. These include assumptions such as ‘œvideogames are only for children’ with the iGEA saying that ‘œ70 percent of [videogame] players are older than 18 and 20 per cent are more than 39 years old’.

The full report is fairly lengthy and delves into a large amount of research material providing evidence for the introduction of a R18+ rating. In the report’s summary, the iGEA says that ‘œThe Australian community would be better served by the National Classification Scheme if an R18+ classification for computer games was introduced’ and that ‘œAdult gamers would be treated like adults,  and  parents would  have  a  complete  toolkit  to manage  children’s  game  playing.’