G'day folks!
As many of you may know, Australia has lacked an R18+ rating for video games for quite some time now (link to my thoughts http://fatmanxviii.blogspot.com/2011/06/australian-video-game-r18-rating.html) and the time has finally come.
Australia now has an R18+ rating system.
This is extremely good news for the gaming community, but there are a few drawbacks on this.
While many of our games that are soon to be released may come in R18+ (Such as Saints Row The Third and possibly MW3), games that have already been released and refused publication will not be able to be sold in the country for a further two years, due to publication laws in Australia. That means games such as Manhunt 2 and Mortal Kombat 9 wont enter the country until 2013.
With this some people have been asking if some presold games shall be upgraded to R18. The answer, simply, is no. With the amount of games sold and the amount of consumers, it would be way too expensive for the companies as well as distribution of the upgrades. This meaning that only Xbox Live subscribers would be able to get the upgrades, and nearly 20% of gamers are offline.
There is also another drawback. While Australians are gaining an R18 rating, we are loosing MA15+ for both games and movies. So our rating system shall change to G, PG, M and R. This means under 15 year olds will no longer be able to openly purchase games, and will need parents to do so. But as previously stated, even before the R18 rating, kids were still getting the games, either through the parents or the internet.
I'm extremely glad to hear our country is finally allowing us to be treated as human beings with rights and I hope this positive outlook on the world outside our boarders will continue.
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