R18+ Classification for Video Games

The decision by censorship ministers to put the issue of the R18+ classification for video games to public consultation is a welcome one. It’s become increasingly clear that the only way the Australian Classification Board will approve the sale of R18+ video games is if this decision is placed in the hands of those who are going to be affected directly.

Australia remains the only country where R18+ rated games are banned from sale due to their excessive violent or sexual content. However, the idea that video games are harmful to minors because they condone or incite violence is an archaic one. Psychologists and experts are increasingly being ignored in this debate in favour of a group whose expertise is questionable – politicians. The chief offender in this case is South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, who insists that R18+ video games should continue to be banned in Australia because they contain ‘harmful material’. Arguing this is Victorian Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Rob Hulls, who is pushing for an adults only classification for games citing an inconsistency in policy which allows adults access to other R18+ material but not video games. Yet Mr. Atkinson had an answer for this too: he believes video games pose a greater threat than other media because of their interactive nature. His claim: "The risk of interactivity on players of computer games with highly violent content is increased aggressive behaviour." Again, voices of experts have been drowned out in what has become one politician’s personal belief imposing on policy-making.

We saw the same narrow-minded point of view in November last year, when New Zealand manager of police youth services, Bill Harrison, remarked that youth violence rates in the Western world had risen sharply in the years previous to coincide with the rise of products such as Microsoft’s Xbox gaming platform. Mr. Harrison said he began to wonder about the effect of video game violence when he found his 14-year-old son playing a graphic Xbox game that involved "human beings killing each other". Of course, some might point out that the media is guilty of the same crime.
In 2006 Germany’s parliament proposed that cruelty on humans in video games should be a punishable offence for ‘promoting’ real life violence. The reason for this claim was a school shooting in the Netherlands, where one teenager wounded 37 people in before killing himself. Apparently, the killer was a fan of Counter Strike, a tactical war video game. One of the parliament bill’s sponsors, Bavarian interior minister Günther Beckstein, claimed that: "It is absolutely beyond any doubt that such killer games desensitise unstable characters and can have a stimulating effect.’’ Clearly, Mr. Beckstein’s opinion was good enough evidence on this matter.

But what does the real evidence suggest?

Indeed, no definitive research has yet come to light to support claims that violent video games gave any negative impact on behaviour. Research on media violence in general has also failed to prove that it’s even an influencing factor in violent behaviour, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that censorship of any entertainment material in an attempt to address violence in the real world is ineffective. Jonathan Freedman from the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychology published his findings on video game violence in 2001, Evaluating the Research on Violent Video Games, citing a number of conclusions that can be drawn from the limited amount of research in this area: firstly that evidence which points to an immediate correlation between aggression and violent video games is far from definitive; secondly that there exist no evidence to suggest that playing violent video games causes any long-term or lasting increase in aggressiveness or violence. Freedman concludes: "There is no such work and no scientific reason to believe that violent video games have bad effects on children or on adults, and certainly none to indicate that such games constitute a public health risk."
Chartered Psychologist and Director of the Communications Research Group in the UK, Dr Guy Cumberbatch, defended video games from media and political attack in his 2001 review of the research evidence, Video Violence: Villain or Victim?, where he claimed that: "The real puzzle is that anyone looking at the research evidence in this field could draw any conclusions about the pattern let alone argue with such confidence and even passion that it demonstrates the harm of violence on television, in film and in video games. If one conclusion is possible, it is that the jury is not still out."

With a survey of 1601 Australian households conducted by Bond University in 2005 suggesting 88 per cent of Australians support an R18+ classification for games, there is still hope that the public will do what the politicians have failed to – employ reason and logic to make a decision that above all affects Australians’ freedom of choice.