08. Is Australia’s ‘Refused Classification (RC)’ category for Video Games treating Adults like kids?

Refused Classification (RC) material is a wide-ranging category of content which includes material deemed to offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults. Thanks, because all I needed was for someone to tell me what I can and can’t play, what I can and can’t watch. Thanks Australia. With the introduction of the adult rating R18+ in video games in 2013, we thought all would be good. We thought to ourselves “We finally won”, no more banning games. And we were dead wrong. Games continue to be judged by a stricter standard and a number of games have been refused classification since then.

Games that would’ve been MA15+ were given R18+ ratings. For example; the Grand Theft Auto series. All have a MA15+ rating, until GTA V came out with an R18+ rating, which more or less has the same violence and gameplay has GTA IV. Before Watch_Dogs released it had an MA15+ rating, as its release date neared it was changed to R18+. Yet games like Hotline Miami 2 get outright banned. Australian citizens you loved the first game, you don’t know if the second game is good because we banned it, and we don’t want you to play it ever. In other news, video games now can have a R18+ rating, enjoy your day. Thanks Australia. Simon Frew, Deputy President of the Pirate Party stated, “The Australian Classifications Board has a long history of banning films, video games and generally treating Australian adults as children”. I'm sure many people agree, including me - that adults are treated like children when it comes to this topic.

What is a reasonable adult? Who is a reasonable adult? This act of banning games is total bull. Developers should be allowed to put their vision in their games, not make games then wait for approval or a statement to say what needs to change for it to be played in certain countries. The rating guidelines have to change, they need to be updated. The ratings are there for a reason, and tells us who can and can’t play that said game - age wise, not for The Australian Classifications Board to ban games. Here’s an idea, have a rating called RC18+ (Refused Classification), even though it might not make sense that it’s called Refused Classification and it is classified as RC18+. But it is a category, so why not make it a rating. Besides the rest of the ratings and banning’s don’t make sense so why not keep the tradition going 😉. Have the description as 18+ and “Play at own risk”. Then it’s not the games fault if you have a complaint that it’s too violent or too sexual, it yours, and yours alone, that you picked it up and played it. But until then, we as Australians just have to hope and pray that upcoming releases of our most anticipated games don’t get banned in Australia and we can get our hands on them. Thanks Australia.

References

2010, What is Refused Classification (“RC”) material?, libertus.net, viewed 21 April 2017, <http://libertus.net/censor/isp-blocking/au-govplan-refusedclassif.html>.

Kotzer Z, 2015, How to Get Your Video Game Banned in Australia, Motherboard, viewed 21 April 2017, <https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-to-get-your-video-game-banned-in-australia>.

2015, Classifications Board continues to treat adults like children, Pirate Party, viewed 21 April 2017, <.https://pirateparty.org.au/2015/01/16/classifications-board-continues-to-treat-adults-like-children/>.

07. The Addiction

Video Game Addiction is described as an impulse control disorder, which does not involve use of an intoxicating drug. Video game addiction has also been referred to as video game overuse or compulsive/excessive use of video games. So, that’s it then, it's settled, either get addicted to video games or get addicted to drugs. Your choice. Only joking (not really). Too much of anything is bad for you or at least too much of any said thing could make you get bored of it. And in some instances, people don’t have that line drawn. They play games all day, every day. 

Gaming addictions can result in personal, family and academic problems. But here’s the thing, we can’t blame video games for this, we should blame the person who has become addicted. So, all those news stories blaming video games can go straight in the bin. In my experience, if I’m enjoying a game, I’ll play it for a long time, maybe a couple of hours. And at some point, I get tired or can’t be bothered playing anymore, or if I see that its late at night and I have something planned the next day, I have the power to say it’s enough for today and Save & Exit the game. I don’t think I’ve ever started playing a game when its 2-3 am, because there’s no reason to. I’ve been playing games all my life, and maybe I don’t have any addiction problems at all in my life and don’t have that trait, but for me it’s easy to exit a game and know I’ll play it at a later date. So long story short, I have no credibility on the matter of video game addiction, though I did play Call of Duty: Black Ops basically every day for a month and didn’t pick it up again until years later. But even in that month, it was November or December (can’t really remember), so I had school holidays, and didn’t have much going on. But even then, I didn’t play it at the times of 2 or 3 am, I knew when to exit and hop on the next day. You probably think that was an addiction and maybe it was, but it only lasted one month (maybe even less than a month), and I stopped without anyone’s help, because I knew I had to stop, not because it was ruining my life, but it got boring and repetitive at a point and it was time to stop. That was probably the first and only time I had played a game with those set of circumstances. I’m sure there are people who don’t or can’t say “STOP” to themselves.

But once again, I got no idea how that feels, and all this reading is a waste of time, from someone you can play games for a month straight and then stop playing games altogether for months. It’s about balancing your priorities, and once again, too much of anything is bad for you or at least too much of anything gets you bored of it. And once again, I know there are people who have problems with video game ‘addiction’. So to them, I basically have no advice :( . I guess call a video game addiction hotline? maybe? I don’t know, I got no idea. Maybe swap that addiction with something else like eating. Oh wait.... nooooooo.

References

What is Video-game addiction, AddictionRecov, viewed 15 April 2017, <http://www.addictionrecov.org/Addictions/?AID=45>.

06. She Blinded Me With Violence

“Violence in Video Games Creates Killers.” Wait, what? If you don’t agree and you’re wondering why someone would say that statement, then you’re in the same boat as me. If you agree with the above statement, simply go f*** yourself. There have been many people trying to take down video games and video game developers/publishers over the years. From countries not giving games classification ratings and developers changing or removing content from their game to get into countries, like Australia for example, or just a figure in main stream media who can’t tell the difference between Connect Four and Monopoly trying to tell everyone that we must stop violence in video games because its making our kids abusive and terrorists. The original Grand Theft Auto (1997) was condemned in Britain, Germany and France due to its “extreme violence”, which included pixelated cars running over pixelated people and a few pixelated blood sprites. Here’s something I’m going to say that probably isn’t going to be the last time i say it, there’s a rating on the box of the game for a reason, if you’re a parent who has a child or children whom are younger than 15 and play games that are rated MA15+ or R18+ and you think your kids can’t ‘handle’ it, then don’t blame games that are rated with said ratings and clearly say what that game entails, blame yourself as a parent. 

Remember when Target pulled Grand Theft Auto V off the shelves. Three women started a change.org petition to take down Grand Theft Auto V. Those three women said they were survivors of violence, and I’m not going to say anything about that, because it’s a shame that people go through violent times or live in situations that they can’t get away from that are violent. But they put the blame on video games, a specific video game to be exact. Because we all know that violence wasn’t around until video games ruined our lives (sarcasm). God and Jesus Christ actually lived a quiet, normal life until the hit video game Grand Theft Atheist came out, after that all hell broke loose (well, not hell to the Atheists but something similar), right? Wrong. They stated in the petition that “It’s a game that encourages players to murder women for entertainment.” Clearly, they haven’t played a Grand Theft Auto game or at least done research that are based on facts.

Let me just say that the Grand Theft Auto Series is a parody of modern life, with over the top stories and comments of our real lives, and makes fun of ourselves and beliefs as human beings. Yes, you can drive by women - oh wait I don’t really have to be PC - so, you can drive up to some prostitutes and you can partake in some sexual acts in the car which cost in game money that you could be spending on something else, and after all is said and done and she’s walking away you can (optional, just like most things in life, optional, a choice) shoot and kill her and take your money back , but if anyone sees you do that, you gain a wanted level or two and the police try to take you down. Now after all that is said, I still didn’t give you one piece of information of what Grand Theft Auto V is about. Someone could go the whole game by not doing that act I just spoke of. And if you go and look up the synopsis or plot summary of Grand Theft Auto V nothing is said about that act because that’s not the story, why don’t the people who made the petition make a petition to all people who go to prostitutes in real life. Remember the saying the oldest profession in the world, this might not be true, but its older than video games were around. And if the reason for the petition was the content of the game, maybe we should have sent them a chart of the classification ratings and had a whole seminar with them and try to explain the difficult task that R18+ means no one can watch/play/use this content if they are not over the age of 18 and only can if parental supervision/agreement is active.

I went on a bit of a tangent, I was going to talk about specific people like Jack Thompson who sought out to destroy Rockstar games and the Grand Theft Auto series in the early days, but didn’t really get to it because there are many people I could’ve talk about who blame video games for violence in the real world, even Hilary Clinton did for a period of time. People like to destroy what they don’t understand, first it was Rock n’ Roll then the blame shifted to video games. We should be looking in the mirror - all of us - especially the ones blaming video games, and thinking that it’s not video games’ fault, or Rock n’ Roll, or Atheists or Enter - whichever religion, it’s us as human beings on a primal level that’s way harder to understand and blame on one thing. Violence was all around us way before video games were ever created and we should let people make the art they want to make. Because once again Video Games are a form of art (that’s not the first time I’ve said that, and won’t be the last).

References

Grubb B, 2014, Target Australia pulls Grand Theft Auto V from shelves after customer feedback on violence, The Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 9 April 2017, <http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/target-australia-pulls-grand-theft-auto-v-from-shelves-after-customer-feedback-on-violence-20141203-11znsz.html>.

Biggs T, 2014, Grand Theft Auto and the problem with banning 'violent' video games and media, The Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 9 April 2017, <http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/grand-theft-auto-and-the-problem-with-banning-violent-video-games-and-media-20141203-11zq3h>.

Stuart K, 2013, GTA 5 review: a dazzling but monstrous parody of modern life, The Guardian, viewed 9 April 2017, <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/16/gta-5-review-grand-theft-auto-v>.