Well it’s that time of the year again; time to talk about the elusive R rating for video games in Australia. Yes that’s right, there are talks going on right now to decide if we can handle an R rating for games yet. I first heard about this when I was screwing around on Google looking for an interview with Margret Pomeranz from At The Movies on ABC. She was featured on a short podcast a while back on video game censorship and I think it’s worth every Aussie gamers’ time. When I find it I’ll post a link.

Anyway, during my adventures I found a news story on the ABC website about the R rating being looked at for video games again. Wanting to know more I Googled (Google’ed?) a few websites and found the usual stuff that comes up whenever anybody talks about treating games as a serious form of entertainment in this country. By that I mean flat out ignorance.

Of course gamers down under should be used to this by now, after all it’s not like this is the first time we’ve heard about the possibility of an R rating for games being introduced. Remember when it occurred back a few years ago? It feels like we’ve been on the verge of change so many times, but we never quite make it over the edge.


The state of Australian video game censorship and a metaphor. Deep shit.

You see what happens is every now and then is somebody speaks up and tries to get the R rating passed in the country, and then they followed up by a plethora of ignorant dinosaurs telling everybody about the dangers of giving people choices, and how our shelves will be filled with violent and sexually sexy sex games that will cause children to hit their teachers and then spontaneously combust. Just ask the pro-censroship Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney Julian Porteous!

The ideal situation would for Australia to have its own ESRB style ratings system instead of our current one. But our government loves control far too much to ever give it to somebody else. Of course then you’d have to fight an uphill battle with the big three seeing as they don’t allow games rated AO by the ESRB on US consoles, and an R rating is basically the same thing.

Overall my point is that even though I want an R rating, you want an R rating and that guy over there near the fake indoor plants wants an R rating, the Australian government is made up of out of touch ignoramuses.

On the plus side, NEWStopia is back on the air and I found this site that shows the extent of censorship in Australia.

(PS – Please don’t think of me as an ALP hater. I hate the ALP just as much as the Coalition.)