Australian R18+ Rating Bill Going Before Parliament in February

The battle between freedom of speech or expression and government oversight varies widely from country to country, but for the videogame industry Australia has some of the most stringent guidelines of any Western country. Ok, so there’s nothing “west” about Australia, but it’s still inexplicably under the thumb of the British monarchy in some largely symbolic fashion I got bored of reading about on Wikipedia after five minutes. But I digress.

The problem stems from Australia’s official government ratings board not having an R18+ rating for videogames. Other forms of media in the country do, but games had to meet the standards for a MA15+ rating instead, often either leading to a game not being released at all, or just slightly edited and 15 year olds being able to buy what is essentially a higher age rated game in other territories.

Progress has been slow, but over the last few years moves have been made to try and bring Australia’s videogame ratings more in line with those of other nations.

Next month a bill will go before the Australian parliament, attempting to basically add the R18+ rating to videogames while keeping the same or similar standards that the rating carries for films.

At this point I’m just going to suggest you read the GameSpot post linked above (full of coverage from their Australian branch) if you want an in depth breakdown of what the bill faces because while their parliamentary procedure seems pretty similar to what I’m used to in the US, I’m sure I’d just mess something up.

Via: GameSpot