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So today was supposed to be D-day for a decision on the R18+ game rating classification. One way or another, the Attorney General from each state were supposed to vote on wether there should be a new 18+ rating introduced into Australia. Unfortunately they couldn’t decide and the twitter-sphere erupted with frustration.
Rightly so considering this campaign has now continued for years without a result. Seriously guys, GT5 shipped before we got 18+ games. If you want to see just how disappointed adult gamers are, take a look at #R18AU although right now its updating about as fast as #WikiLeaks.
To put things in perspective, Australia is the only developed nation without a R18+ rating for video games. Given we have it for movies, dvd’s, magazines and pretty much every other form of media, it just makes sense.
Right now without the adult classification there’s two outcomes. The first is that developers decide the Australian market is important enough to spend development time reworking the title to fit within the M15+ classification. The result of this is we have games where shooting an enemy results in them just fading out, rather than having limbs blown off and the natural resulting blood. The second option is that the game simply just doesn’t arrive in Australia at all. Either way.. we need R18+ game ratings and now !
More @ GamespotAU
