Australian Classification: The Beliefs of the Few Dictate the Rights of the Many.

The revised guidelines for Australia’s game classification have been released, and they’re a bit concerning. In the context of violence for example, it reads:

“Violence is permitted. High impact violence that is, in context, frequently gratuitous, exploitative and offensive to a reasonable adult will not be permitted“.

It’s the “…to a reasonable adult…” bit that has me worried. Who gets to define what a reasonable adult is? Vague laws and policy are bad, as it leaves much up to interpretation and little recourse for people looking to appeal. In this case, it means publishers have little guidance in regards to what is acceptable or not. They’ll just have to submit a game for classification and hope whoever makes the decision decides it’s ok for “a reasonable adult”.

It would no longer be a set of guidelines, but policy just shy of a free license for the Australian Classification Board to decide what is and isn’t suitable. I’m further concerned that the “reasonable adults” who get to define what that means either abstained or voted “No” or abstained for the change, flying in the face of over 80% of Australians that said they were in favour of it.

July 22nd, 2011 was a tense day for Australian gamers. The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General were in a meeting discussing the future of Australian games classification. We’d spent over a decade trying to convince these gentlemen that adults play games. It was an incredibly frustrating battle, as it seemed they were unable to move past the notion that are games only for children and poorly adjusted adults. No matter how rational our argument, the response was invariably along the lines of “But what about the children? We don’t want them playing those games”.

Neither do we, we’d reply. Just like we don’t want them driving cars or drinking alcohol. So let’s put a classification system in place that lets adults play the games they want while stopping children from simply walking into a store and buying it. It felt like at times trying to prove to someone they wouldn’t fall up into the sky if they went outside, despite being able to look out the window and see everything else was doing just fine.

You see, Australia doesn’t have an adult classification for games. You’ve probably heard about how the “Morphine” in Fallout 3 had to be changed to “Med-X”. That change came about when our classification board said the game was to be refused classification because it was “promoting or encouraging prescribed drug use”. Refused classification means it’s illegal to sell the game here, so the morphine was instead changed to med-x. As med-x is not a prescribed drug, the game got the go-ahead.

It’s a fairly common story down here. Game submitted for classification. Game refused classification. Game has content causing the refusal removed. Game resubmitted.

At least, that’s the best we hope for. The 2011 release of Mortal Kombat was refused classification, and while Warner Bros. unsuccessfully appealed the decision, they shrugged their shoulders and said “Sorry guys, but it’s not worth the trouble making an Australian specific version”, which I can appreciate. As it stands Mortal Kombat is a prohibited item, on par with performance enhancing drugs. If customs catches you with it, they’ll have words with you. Nasty, accusatory words.

As if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, in order for the classification to change, the eight Attorney-Generals of our fair land have to unanimously agree that we should do so. If even one says no, or chooses to abstain, that’s it. No revision of the system.

This issue that has been one of the big stumbling blocks. Up until recently, that came in the form of South Australia’s Attorney General, Michael Atkinson. He made it quite clear that under no circumstances would he ever approve of an R18+ rating, as he felt it would greatly increase the chances of children accessing the material. I’m not sure which was more frustrating, that he was entirely unwilling to listen reason, or that his personal beliefs impacted the entire nation.

In response to this, a few enterprising individuals created a political party named “Gamers 4 Croydon” (G4C), Croydon being the electorate Michael Atkinson represented. It’s was based on a simple principle: “We game, we vote”.

The work and effort those guys put into their campaign was simply incredible, and all of Australia’s gamers were behind them. We were going to show the Attorney General for South Australia just how important this was to us. Over the course of the campaign, Atkinson was dismissive and insulting of the party, some of his quotes ranging from “They won’t get 1% of the vote prediction” to accusing the party of resorting to “criminal activities and dirty tricks”. G4C was determined to represent gamers in a professional and adult manner, and conducted themselves well.

I followed their campaign very closely, and only once did I feel they let their frustration out of the bag. Just after the votes had been tallied, they posted the results with a short sentence.

“Here’s your 1%”

G4C had accumulated 3.7% of the primary vote. That may not sound like much, but it swung Atkinsons votes by more than 9%, which is a huge deal in the political sphere, especially considering that G4C’s votes had been secured mostly a single issue and the party was barely six months old. They hadn’t gone about it half-heartedly though, having develop many other policies, but their primary focus had been games classification, and Croydon, on behalf of all Australian gamers, had spoken. Though he still won the seat, he stepped down as Attorney-General of South Australia. G4C was all over Australian media, being cited as the driving force behind his resignation. They had sent a powerful message to the elected leaders of our country:

“We game, we vote”

I’ve never been more proud to call myself a gamer.

As the months passed, and with changes in the government, new Attorney-Generals assumed their positions. We hoped the fresh blood would be more open to reason than their predecessors.

That’s what made the 22nd of July, 2011, so important. For the first time ever, it looked as if we would finally get our unanimous vote, in large part thanks to Brendan O’Connor, the Federal Member for Gorton. And we did, sort of. The Attorney General for NSW, Greg Smith initially decided to abstain, but after some convincing decided that he was in favour for it. Australian gamers rejoiced. We cried. We bro-fisted. We’d done it.

At least we thought we had. The vagueness of the new classification legislation may mean that we’ll be even worse off in the struggle for a sensible classification system. As mentioned earlier, it has been the work of over a decade to get an R18+ rating. However, it may only be in name, and any objections we raised could simply be twisted into us asking for more violence in games.

Greg Smith, the Attorney General who initially abstained, said during an interview with Australia’s 7 News said “I think they should be banned. It involves a prostitute giving sexual favors for money to a man in a car, and then when she gets out, he comes out with a semi-automatic rifle and shoots her dead. Now what good does that do anybody?”.

Kotaku Australia spoke to one of his representatives to follow up on his comments, which can be summed with this quote: “The AG doesn’t want any dilution of the Refused Classification category for games, but remains fully committed to an R18+ rating for video games”. That basically means everything currently being Refused Classification continues to be.

It makes me wonder exactly what impression Greg Smith has of adult gamers. I imagine someone watching the last 10 minutes of “The Godfather II”, and wondering what good it does anyone to watch a man order his brother killed and dumped in a lake.

I’m of the firm belief that an individual is free to believe in whatever values they choose, provided those values do not impinge on the rights of others. That feels reasonable to me, but apparently not to AG Greg Smith. Unfortunately, only one of us gets a say on the National Classification Code, which according to the Australian Law Reform Commission, is guided by the statement “adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want”.

It almost feels like they left a bit out: “…so long as The Attorney Generals’ decide it’s ok”.

Games are a step in the evolution of media. To call a game evil is comparable to calling books, movies, television or the internet evil. They are merely a medium by which humanity shares ideas, and sharing ideas is one of humanities most important mandates. Sometimes those ideas are confronting, but those are the ideas that are of most critical importance.

There is a Facebook article from the Disasters Emergency Committee regarding a young boy, who after watching appeals on TV, asked the money that people would spend on his presents be instead donated to help feed people dying from famine in Africa. Their plight was shown to him by TV, and his story delivered to us by the internet. If we restrict media too much for fear of what we may see, we risk being apathetic and ignorant to the world around us.

Games have amazing potential in delivering these messages. One of my most sincerest wishes is that they are given the opportunity to continue to grow and do so.