Censorship: Computer games lose out

by admin , under Features, The Magazine, Web Exclusives

House of the Dead: Overkill

By Josh Jennings

POV zombie shoot-em-up video game House of the Dead: Overkill, bears the distinction of using the most f-bombs in gaming history, according to the Guinness World Records. Pick up the controller, spend five minutes getting trigger-happy on the relentless flock of zombies mobbing your screen and just see if you don’t wind up cursing like an NWA rapper with PMS.

That Overkill is classified suitable for the 15-plus market in Australia (while being restricted to 18-year-olds in the Unites States in Britain) might seem like good news for the Australian gamer kids who have just turned 15, but not everybody in Australia is chuffed with the current censorship laws. Under these laws, the adult population is forbidden access to games such as Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude (a T&A extravaganza, featuring a slew of perky animated characters and Benny Hill-esque shenanigans).

While the intent behind banning R18+ games is to protect minors from getting their paws on the wrong content (note: refer to Overkill as case in point that it doesn’t), critics argue that the system denies adults their freedom to choose, raising the question: Does Australia need to re-think its censorship laws for video games?

A Larry babe you didn't get to see...

Tom Crago, president of the Game Developers Association of Australia, is adamant that it does. “The law needs to be changed to protect the freedom to choose,” says Mr Crago.

“It is a travesty that Australian adults are denied that right at present. Anyone with a counter view is by definition an advocate of hardline censorship. Of course, there are plenty among our community who do advocate such censorship—the religious right spring readily to mind. But that type of censorship has no place in a country like Australia.”

In 1993, the Select Committee on Community Standards Relevant to the Supply of Services Utilising Electronic Technologies released a Report on Video and Computer Games and Classification Issues and its recommendation that material classified R18+ or X be banned, and MA15+ be the highest classification, was implemented.

Then-chief censor at the Office of Film & Literature Classification, John Dickie, reported to the committee that the OFLC consulted with behavioural experts and researchers for insights into the possible effects video games have on children who play them, but they were unable to uncover any specific information in that field.

Deputy chief censor, David Haines, added that such studies would be futile thanks to rapid technological advances in the gaming industry and the subsequent problems of studying causal effects. The frequently contradictory findings into the effects of television mirrored the problems with examining the effects of video games. The OFLC’s stance was that research into causal links between watching violent material and committing violent acts was pointless due to the possibility of so many other competing causal factors.

The Committee’s belief, in spite of this, was that anecdotal evidence from police and public prosecutions of a linkage was adequate proof enough that “the community can not fail to act to control a situation which has the very real potential, even if statistically inconclusive, to affect young people.”

So what should we be more concerned about: the threat that R18+ video games pose to minors or the threat the prohibition of these video games poses to the civil liberties of consenting and responsible adults?