Right: Despite claims made after shooting incidents at American schools, such as the Columbine killings, a United States Secret Service study found that only 12% of those involved in school shootings were attracted to violent video games.
Further implications
It will be interesting to see whether the federal government decides to introduce an R18+ classification into Australia for video games. It will require the agreement of all states' attorneys general to do so.In the name of consistency such a classification seems desirable because it already exists for films and thus videos. Critics argue, however, that video games are not films and that as an interactive entertainment their impact on the user/viewer is far greater.
How much difference would an R18+ classification make? Supporters, curiously, argue that it would make very little difference. The most recent survey (2009) conducted by Professor Brand on behalf of the iGEA concludes, 'In practice, the impact of a government classification system is negligible.
Of more than 3,500 titles classified in Australia between 2004 and 2008 by the Board, only 19 titles were restricted. This is a very small proportion (half of one percent) of the total product pool available on the market.
Nevertheless, transnational publishers of these works saw fit to revise their titles in nearly half of the cases [sic] to bring those products to the relatively small Australian market.'
What this means is that very few video games that makers have attempted to import into Australia over five years have been denied classification. Of the 19 not given an MA15+ rating ten were revised to make them suitable for classification.
If the issue revolves around some nineteen titles over five years, or .5% of the number of titles actually imported, then it would seem that the lack of a R18+ classification is having very little impact on the Australian gaming public. However, it would be helpful to know if there is a larger number of extreme titles being manufactured overseas that makers are not even attempting to import into Australia under our current classification regime and which an R18+ classification might allow entry.
As the Attorney's General Department discussion paper notes there can be a conflict between allowing adults the right to choose their own entertainment and protecting children from potentially damaging material.
In the final analysis, the issue may not be one of blanket censorship, as the current MA15+ classification attempts, but of how we use technology, education and legal sanctions to ensure that children do not access unsuitable material nor have it sold to them.