R18+ Games Australia understands that a motion was moved to adopt party support for an R18+ classification at the recent WA Liberal State Conference.

The Western Australian Union of Liberal Students, the peak body of all University Liberal Clubs in WA, moved a motion to support the creation of R18+ classification for games at the annual conference. The conference was attended by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, state and federal MP’s and Ministers, as well as industry leaders. Although the motion was defeated 74 votes to 67, we understand the debate was well received within party ranks and that the issue is gaining attention.

To this date, neither major party supports this much-needed change to the ratings system. And with an election campaign well under way, it is doubtful that this issue will even come back on the agenda for the next few months.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 10:23 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Comments on WA Liberal State Conference Rejects R18+

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   spelling games for kids says:

   Australian gamers could use a less restricted legislation, a lot of big titles didn’t reach the shelves because of the decrepit legislature

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   shaunoez says:

   i think tony abbott should look into this

   he could earn alot of votes..

   think about it 60thousand gamers all voting for him just cause he will give us r18+

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   Steve C says:

   Surprised this is not an article linked on this site:
   http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/08/the-greens-support-an-r18-rating-for-games/

   @epelling games: All the big titles made it here, its the smaller ones that couldn’t justify the cost of making a ‘censored’ edition, or resubmitting their title to the OFLC for re-classification. Dark Sector is a good example of this – small company, small publisher, in-house created game engine (commonly mistaken to be Unreal Ed) – yet contains nothing more graphic than seen in the big titles Gears of War and Fallout 3. GTA4 was picked up for similarly petty reasons, but had the financal resources to make a new version of their game. Even Modern Warfare 2 has a rather questionable scene thats apparently suitable for 15-year olds… and it seem Fallout New Vegas and Dead Rising 2 are also suitable.

   My biggest concern with our current system is games like the above mentioned are being classified as not to offend the larger publishers, and keep the retail industry running, otherwise more and more people would just import from the UK – especially big title games. As a result, we get games classified “adults only” in the rest of the world mixed in the same grouping as those suitable for teenagers.

   If the government is so anti-R18 rating, they should at least be consistent in their classification and RC games like Bioshock, Gears of War, Dead Space, the list goes on.