I’m sure that the Australian gamers reading this probably know who Michael Atkinson is, but for those who don’t, allow me to enlighten you.
Atkinson is the Attorney-General for the state of South Australia. He is also one of the most vocal opposers to the introduction of an R18+ rating for video games in Australia (Australia being the only Western democracy without an 18+ or similar rating for games. At the moment the highest rating is MA15+, meaning that any game which doesn’t fit under this banner (i.e. isn’t deemed suitable for 15 yr olds to play) is refused classification, effectively banning it from sale.
When the issue of an R18+ rating for games was first voted on by the various state Attorney-Generals, Atkinson was the only one who voted no, but because the decision has to be unanimous the bill wasn’t passed. And so mature Australian gamers have suffered on ever since.
Safe to say, I don’t like Michael Atkinson very much (nor do many Australian gamers), so I decided to write him a letter.
Dear Mr. Atkinson,
My name is Ira Herbold. I am, amongst other things, a player of video games. I also believe that Australia should have an R18+ rating for video games. Now, I’m sure that those last two sentences have probably caused you to look upon reading the rest of this letter with derision, however, before you stop reading entirely, let me assure you that it is not my intention to attack your viewpoint recklessly and without thought. To the contrary, I understand your viewpoint on this issue, though I do disagree with it. No, it is my intention simply to present my opinion, and argue my side of this issue, as you have done on many occasions.
I would like to begin by talking about an interview with you on the ABC TV show Good Game which aired in November of last year. You said in this interview that, as games are an interactive medium, they must be put into a different category than film and television. You said, and I quote, that “one is doing the running down and killing, one is doing the shooting”. But the simple fact of the matter is that when one plays a violent video game, one is not doing the shooting or the killing. You’re sitting on a couch, pushing buttons which cause an on screen fictional character to do the shooting and killing. In that regard, I would say that interactive games have no more impact on mentally healthy adults than films or TV. I know that I personally am more disturbed by the nightly news than any video game I’ve ever played, and yet there are no ratings warnings before the news.
There have been no conclusive studies proving a link between video games and violent behaviour. This was actually outright stated by the British Board of Film Classification in 2007, when they said “there is insufficient evidence to prove, as a fact, there is a casual connection between video games and behavioural harm”. Rather, US federal crime statistics point to just the opposite. Juvenile crime in the US recently hit a thirty year low, and, according to the US Department of Justice, has been continually decreasing over many years prior, as video games have become both more mainstream and more graphically sophisticated. According to a 2001 US Surgeon General’s report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings are mental stability and quality of home life, not media exposure.
Despite this, I am certainly not saying that children should be exposed to games such as the recently refused classification Left 4 Dead 2, or last year’s Fallout 3, which was also originally refused classification, content which, regardless of the link (or lack thereof) of video games to violent behaviour, is clearly inappropriate for younger gamers.
However, this raises another important point. Most gamers are not children. In fact, the Interactive Australia 2009 report on the state of gaming in Australian culture, which was conducted by Bond University, showed that the average Australian gamer is 30 years old. In the same interview with Good Game that I mentioned earlier, you called this study “bogus polling” and “trash”, saying that this research (and other research in this area) was funded by the interactive games industry and people who stand to benefit financially from an R18+ rating for games. In reality, this survey was, and I quote Bond University’s Jeffrey Brand, “written independently, by a team of Bond University academics, was fielded by an impartial international company, Nielsen Research, and the statistical analysis was performed following the highest international standard of research ethics.”
By the way, that same study also showed that 91 percent of all people surveyed were in favour of an R18+ rating being introduced for games.
Your position over the course of the R18+ debate has consistently been that the lack of an 18+ rating for games protects children from violence and/or sex and/or drugs in games. However, it really does the complete opposite. To quote Australian author Max Barry, “Instead of Australia having a violent, bloody computer game restricted to adults, it will have a violent, not-quite-as-bloody game on sale to children. This is the effect of our law: to take content that was designed for adults and tweak it until it scrapes under the MA15+ bar. We’re making available to children material they would not otherwise see, clustered at the extreme end of what is acceptable.”
You stated in a letter to gaming website GameSpot Australia early this year that “In cinemas, the age of moviegoers can be regulated, and at the video store people must provide ID to hire R18+ videos. Once electronic games are in the home, access to them cannot be policed and the games are easily accessible to children.” Firstly, games can be regulated in the same way that DVDs can. People must provide ID (or be clearly over 18) to rent or buy R18+ and MA15+ films, as they must provide ID to rent or buy MA15+ video games. The Entertainment Software Association in the US has stated that 94 percent of gamers under the age of 18 report that their parents are present when they buy or rent games. Granted this a statistic from the US, but I suspect the Australian statistic would comparable. Once games are in the home they can, again, be regulated in the exact same way that films are. By parents not allowing their children to play games that they believe to contain adult content that they believe is inappropriate for their kids. The problem is that under the current ratings system, parents can’t make a properly informed choice about this.
To again draw from the Interactive Australia 2009 study, 92 percent of Australian parents are aware of the games their kids are playing, but without parents actually watching every second of their kids playing games, they can’t be certain of the content of games with the ratings system as it is. The current Australian ratings system for games results in content that is intended for adults, that is given an a rating reflecting this in other countries, being (sometimes) slightly modified to be classified as MA15+ here and being made available to younger people who the developers of the game did not originally intend to play it.
The introduction of an R18+ rating for video games would, yes, mean that some violent games that would have, under the current system, been refused classification will be classified R and put on sale for adults. And it would also mean that those games intended for adults that are released here under an MA15+ rating would be re-rated as R18+ and would be restricted to their intended audiences. It would allow parents to make properly informed choices about what games their children play, and would in the end protect children far better from unsuitable content than simply banning more adult themed games from sale.
The banning of such games is in reality promoting crime. You said in a speech in State Parliament in March of last year that parental locks and the like of video game systems are laughable, as “Today’s children are far more technologically savvy than their parents.” If this is the case, then said children are certainly technologically savvy enough to illegally download banned games from file sharing and/or torrent websites, something that could easily be done without parental knowledge (especially given that today’s children are so much more technologically savvy than their parents), resulting in kids playing banned games with no level of governmental or parental input. At least with an R18+ rating in place, distribution of these games could be more easily monitored and restricted, both by the government and by Australian parents.
The current rating system does nothing but mislead parents that adult content is suitable for younger gamers. Your opposition to the introduction of an R18+ rating for video games in Australia is doing nothing to protect children from inappropriate content. It is doing nothing but hurting the video game industry, immensely frustrating Australian gamers, and exposing younger gamers to content that they were never intended to view, and otherwise would not.
Yours Sincerely,
Ira Herbold
I also sent this letter off to Mr. Atkinson a few days ago and am patiently awaiting a response (though I’m not holding my breath).
