Legal Niches

Discussion Paper Responses Heavily in Favor of R18+

By pete_gallagher

Responses to the Australian Discussion Paper—designed to foster public conversation on whether or not an R18+ rating category for games should be created—have been overwhelmingly in favor of adding the new category.

A Copyright and Classification Policy Branch member, as reported by GameSpot, claimed that as of February 1, 2010, 6,239 responses to the Discussion Paper had been received. While only 1,084 of those had been processed so far, just 11 responses out of the 1,084 were against adding an R18+ category.

South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson has been vocal in his position that only gamers care about this specific issue, perhaps setting himself up for a win-win situation as he can now say he saw this coming and that all the pro-R18+ responses were from the gaming population.

Responses to the Discussion Paper are being accepted until February 28.

Adding the R18+ rating category would require a unanimous vote in favor of the action by all Australia's Attorney Generals.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on February 10, 2010 (boomark / email).