Recently there has been renewed debate in Australia about the possibility of the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) extending the computer game rating system to include an R18+ classification category (restricted the people over the age of 18). It’s an interesting issue from an academic perspective because it raises questions about the nature of game classification systems, and the status of games and the games industry in Australia. I’d argue that the current system for the classification of games is inconsistent and increasingly unable to effectively rate games. It’s not simply an R18+ classification category we need, but a complete reconsideration of how games are classified.
Background
A bit of background is useful here. Currently in Australia games cannot be given a classification higher than MA15+. This means that games that are deemed unfit for people younger than 15 are refused classification, which bans their sale or use in Australia. This doesn’t stop people from obtaining games that have been refused classification in this age of online shopping and digital delivery, of course, but it does curtail the marketing of certain titles, and increases the costs of developing games for the Australian market. In August 2005 the issue of an R18+ classification was brought up, but was scuttled by resistance from the South Australian Attorney General, Michael Atkinson. In Australia, changes to the OFLC guidelines need to be supported by all State and Territory governments.
So, what’s the problem? Advocates for the R rating classification argue that adults should be able to view whatever content they like - within reason. If I can hire or watch an R-rated DVD then it seems inconsistent if I can’t access R-rated games. One obvious concern here is what kind of game would be rated R - and do we want such games here? It’s easy to imagine a host of sinister titles lurking out there in the world that are currently banned in Australia. A move toward an R classification will open the floodgates to a deluge of violent and sexuallt explcit games that, because of their availability, will make it into the hands of children (this is essentially the argument presented by Atkinson).
What’s being banned: two examples
If we’re worried about the kind of material that might be permitted under an R18+ classification, then it makes sense to ask what kind of games are already being banned. What’s interesting is that many games that hold an R or 17+ rating overseas do not get banned in Australia - most get let through with an MA15+ classification, often subject to minor modification of the game code to tone it down a bit.
Based on the OFLC’s guidelines and the games that have been refused classification, it’s pretty clear that it’s explicit drug use, sexual or violent content (more frequently violent, because sex and drugs in games is less common than violence) that leads to a game being refused classification. Since 2001 18 games have been refused classification and of these eight have been granted M15+ classifications after modification of the game content [article].
One example is Soldier of Fortune: Payback, which features a lone Rambo-style soldier engaging in gorey, revenge-driven combat against computer-controlled human opponents. One might think that the basic premise of the game is the problem - you get to play someone out for bloody revenge. Yet where SoF seems to have run foul of the OFLC is in its depiction of the combat. ‘Rag doll’ physics is used to simulate the way bodies move (adding to realism) and opponents can be dismembered, decapitated and generally killed in all manner of hyperviolent ways. Nothing that you wouldn’t see in a modern horror movie, and probably a lot less realistic, but it’s interactive, so rather than watching people doing this, we’re doing it being done to other people. You can have a look at a gameplay video on youtube for this game and get an idea about what it looks like in play (warning: over the top simulated blood and dismemberment herein).
That’s seems like the sort of thing many parents wouldn’t want their kids playing. But here we have a serious issue that undermines the entire classification system for games, because the OFLC did eventually grant SoF:Payback an MA15+ classification, after some modifications were made to remove the dismemberment and gore. The Australian version looks much more like the trailer for the game released by Activision . Unlike the other video, which was recorded by a player, the official trailer has the violence settings turned down (you can dial-up the level of gore in the game, assumedly as part of some kind of trivial parental lockout system). This second version is very much like the view you’d see if you were playing the modified MA15+ version of the game in Australia. See, much better for kids - much more wholesome.
What’s even more problematic about the decision of the Office to refuse classification for this game is that the previous incarnations of the game (Soldier of Fortune 1 & 2) were passed unmodified with an MA15+ classification. The previous versions had many of the same issues as the sequel (blood, dismemberment) - in fact, they were major features o the game. One bit I remember in particular from SoF 1 was the way you could shoot enemies in the groin, then while they were doubled over, execute them. I wonder what changed between 2000 and 2007? Not the quality of the graphics: while the rendering technology is improving fast, the realism has not changed appreciably between 2001 and now. Look for yourself:
(image from
http://www.itworld.com/shared/images/2003/10/lw-1218-tengames_fig2.jpg)
(image from http://www.fpsteam.it/img2006/sof2/soldier_of_fortune_2-02.jpg)
(image from http://www.videogames.net.au/images/blood-in-sof-payback1.JPG)
For another example, take Rockstar’s controversial title Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s a ’sandbox’ style game which allows you to follow a linear plot, play sub-games or just wander armed around an urban landscape. In its previous incarnations it has been a controversial title. The previous version Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was especially controversial in Australia because after initially being classified as MA15+ and released onto the market, a third-party ‘mod’ unlocked gameplay that involved simulation of sex that led to the OFLC reversing its decision and refusing classification some months after the game had been on shelves (you can find videos of the offending content on youtube if you search for “hot coffee” and “san andreas”).
The latest version of the game, GTA IV, was not refused classification. Instead, Rockstar submitted an already modified version of the game to the OFLC. The OFLC subsequently gave the game an MA15+ classification. To date we don’t know for certain what the modifications are, as Rockstar has not disclosed them. It’s pretty safe to say that the modifications required were minor as so far people playing GTA IV have not been able to find any major differences.
I have not played GTA IV, but I know that in GTA:San Andreas, even though it has an MA15+ classification, you could still drive your car onto the kerb and run over people, get out and repeatedly assault a wounded pedestrian with a golf club. You could still put bullet between the eyes of an unarmed pedestrian you confronted with a pistol - while they held their hands above their heads in surrender.
An R rating won’t let a rash of new violent games in. They’re already on the shelves - just with a few mostly minor modifications and an MA15+ rating. What an R rating would do is twofold. First, it would provide adults with the ability to make their own choices about what games they want to play. This principle is absolutely in keeping with the National Classification Code principles, which state that “adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want“. Secondly it would allow games with content that is deemed unfit for minors to be properly rated, thus giving parents a more satisfactory idea of what a game rated MA15+ contains.
A New Ratings System for Games
You’d think from this that I’d support the introduction of an R18+ rating classification for games. I do, but I think we need to go further. What we need in Australia is not a debate about introducing an R18+ category for games, but a reform of the ratings system to treat games independently of film. We already do this for literature, so why not for games?
When game ratings were introduced in Australia in 1996 they were bolted on to the film classification system. This was a practical move (because it made it relatively easy to introduce a game rating system), and it reflected the development of interactive CD content around the time and games that used a lot of video material - like Night Trap. But I don’t think a move that was practical in 1996 is still valid more than a decade later.
Since 1996 games have changed - the industry and technology has developed and so has the study and analysis of games. Most games scholars would argue that games are no more like film than literature is, and while aspects of film theory can be brought through to the analysis and criticism of games (as can aspects of narrative theory), games cannot be equated with film.
There has been a well known debate in the game literature between those who feel games should be studied only as games, and those who feel the study of games should emerge from forms established in the analysis of other media and communication. However, the consensus seems to be that the proper study of games needs to strike a balance between adapting existing approaches while retaining a very clear understanding that games are a form in their own right. Here I tend to agree with Ian Bogost’s perspective (from his 2006 Unit Operations), that the study of games can (and should) be informed by a range of methods of analysis, some of which have evolved in literature and film. But that does not mean treating games like film. And in an application of theory as practical as classification, this difference becomes much more important.
The problems that the OFLC face in rating games within the current system are to some degree shown in the inconsistency with which games are rated, and the relative inadequacy of the system in properly classifying game content, as described above. New kinds of games not envisioned under the OFLC’s guidelines also create severe problems. If you’ve bought a copy of World of Warcaft in Australia, you may have noticed a lack of classification on the box. The reason is simple, if problematic: the OFLC cannot classify online games. They say they are inherently unclassifiable.
Unless you’ve been living in a remote cave in Myanmar without electricity (or alternatively, unless you have no interest in games at all), you’d know that World of Warcraft is an online massively mutliplayer game. In other words, there’s one world into which millions of people come together to play - hundreds of them simultaneously on a single server at any one moment - both against each other and cooperatively. Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, claim over 8 million subscribers. Apart from this being big business, it’s also a major form of media entertainment. Odd then that it remains unrated by the OFLC.
The problem, of course, is that a game like World of Warcraft is far removed from film, and this makes classifying it under a system designed to classify film is problematic at best. Aside from quest chains and general background, there’s no linear narrative in World of Warcraft. There’s no real end in the game, no resolution. It’s open ended, finishing only when the player gets sick of the game. Because the player’s experience of the game is mediated to a certain degree by the actions of other players, the game exeprience can change. You can go online one day and have an adventure with a bunch of people on their way to slay some monsters. Another day you can go to do the same thing and find yourself repeatedly attacked and killed by hostile players. In the United States, the ESRB (the industry body that rates games - game classification is self-imposed by the industry in the States) notes that game experience in online play for games like World of Warcraft “may change during online play”.
This is not to say that a game like World of Warcraft can’t be rated, just that it cannot easily be rated under the current classification system. This again emphasises the limitations of the current classification system with respect to games, and strongly suggests the need for a new system that is specifically designed to classify games.
The exact nature of such a classification system is not something I nor any other single individual can define, because I don’t have all the necessary perspective
s on games. The development of new guidelines for games should be something that a select group of people develop in consultation with the community. And here, I would emphasise the importance of balancing that community. There has to be people representing industry on such a panel, and there needs to be people representing a diverse range of views - but it’s absolutely vital that such a panel understands games. A panel to develop game classification guidelines stacked with people who do not play games, and who persist in seeing games as something that are played by children, but who are otherwise leading authorities in some supposedly related area, is not going to develop sensible guidelines, and the process will be pointless.
So, yes, from a political and legislative standpoint, we need to get a little bit more mature in this country about games. The games market is developing and maturing all on its own and will continue to, with or without the government. But there is a clear gap forming between the legislation and political voices on the one hand, and the game playing public on the other hand. Currently we have otherwise law-abiding citizens importing restricted content (ie: unmodified games, or games that have been refused classification here) from overseas risking penalties of up to A$110,000. I don’t think an R18+ rating will entirely address this problem, although anything is better than the current broken system. What we need is some vision and a new classification system for games.
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