IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Australia the World's 'Laughing Stock' Over R18+ Rating

Posted March 18, 2011 by M.H. Williams

After the Australian Classification Board refused to allow Warner Bros’ Mortal Kombat reboot to receive a rating, a member of the federal government has struck out with choice words on the matter.  Australia’s maximum ratings classification stands at MA15+ and without a higher rating mature titles like MK cannot be published in the country without significant content changes.  Australian Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor called the country a “laughing stock” over the lack of rating.

"We're becoming the laughing stock of the developed world, where we're the only country that doesn't have R18 classification level for video games,” said O’Connor.

"I foreshadow that if there is not a consensus around this issue, the Commonwealth will certainly be considering other options, because we cannot continue to have an outdated classification system that's actually, in my view, causing harm to young people,” he pressed.

O’Connor is hoping that the situation can be resolved when the country’s attorneys-general meet in July.  "We're coming up to ten years of inaction. It’s about time now the governments realize that we cannot afford to leave the classification level as it is," O'Connor said. "I'm going into the [July] meeting with an optimistic air."

He acknowledges that sometimes R18+ games could find their way into the hands of children, but counters that a full classification system is required to provide parents with better guidance.

"Just because sometimes people speed on the roads, doesn't mean we shouldn't have the right speed for each particular road,” he said.

[Via Kotaku Australia & ABC News]

M.H. Williams has been writing in some form or another for ten years and has been a hardcore gamer since the NES first graced American shores.  You can catch him on Twitter as @AutomaticZen, Google+ as himself, or on his personal Facebook page.