Hon Michael Atkinson MP Responds

News from Yug - Friday, 11 July 2008 @ 1:28pm

We're all for the anonymous sources at the moment, as we've had someone who has contacted the South Australian Attorney Generals office regarding the lack of an R18 rating in video games, and they recieved a response! Quoting a segment from the letter:

Given this data, I cannot fathom what State-enforced safeguards could exist to prevent R18+ games being bought by households with children and how children can be stopped from using these games, once the games are in the home. If adult gamers are so keen to have R18+ games, I expect children would be just as keen. I have publically argued that because electronic games are interactive, the violence and other adult content in games have a strong impact. I am particularly concerned about the impact these games have on children, who can spend a lot of their unsupervised leisure time gaming.

As per usual, it's all about 'protecting the children', and skirts around the issue of adult gamers HAVING the choice to play the games they want. I didn't realise it was the job of the government to do the parents job for them. Hit 'view more' to read the full document.