Petition To Update Classification Laws In Video Games

In Australia, video games are not considered and respected as a form of entertainment such as art, books and film, but rather games for children. In this day and age, video games unfortunately suffer from an unfair, outdated ratings system that needs to be updated to similar standards if not the same as cinema. The video gaming community of Australia feels that these harsh censorship rules are unjust and request that they are changed to include an R18+ rating, as the most mature rating at the moment is sadly just MA15+. It is unfair that many games need to be edited and censored to suit our high classification standards, forcing us to miss out on many great titles and forms of artistic entertainment that many other countries are privileged to have.

Throughout gaming history, the expression of mature content has been oppressed, making it harder for the gaming industry of Australia to grow. While we respect that children deserve the right to be protected, we feel it shouldn't be at the expense of adults by banning our content, as the mature gaming market has a rather huge audience. We have unfortunately seen many great games banned in the past, such as Manhunt (2003) and now Mortal Kombat (2011), the latter of which is currently seeking an appeal.

This petition is being signed in support of the following:

1. To include a R18+ rating into the classification system, to allow more freedom of mature content in video games.
2. To lift the ban of the most the highly anticipated release of Mortal Kombat. While it does contain many acts of fantasy violence, many of these same violent acts have been seen in about ten other titles from the same series and we feel that improved graphics in this title shouldn't be a reason to ban it.

There are much more violent movies currently available at the moment, and it is unfair that video games should suffer because another form of entertainment has to follow a separate set of rules. The majority of these violent acts in games like Mortal Kombat are exaggerated and also impossible to preform in real life, so there is no fear for people to perform these at home or in public.