I recently wrote a letter to the classification board asking for an R18+ rating - not so more violent or explicit subjects can be allowed in, but simply so that what we HAVE is more restricted. I'm sick of selling GTA and similar games to parents of eight-year-olds. The letter I recieved in response states "The Government believes it remains the responsibility of parents or guardians to make decisions about appropriate entertainment for their children... and to provide adequate supervision." But almost every parent I've advised of the MA15+ rating and what the content consists of, has simply brushed it off as 'normal' or 'its just the same as a good movie'. Maybe, if nothing else, a big adult R rating will snap some sense into them...

I'm not sure if the R rating per se will shock parents in looking into the content before buying the game. I know that in this side of the pacific it hasn't done much (many parents don't even know about the ESRB rating). In the end its still the parent's responsability for what they buy, so this type of laws should be followed by some type of education campaign for adults (even a poster with ESRB ratings on game stores would be something).

I agree. The idea is not to restrict what content can be included in games, but rather who is playing the games with mature/adult content. The whole argument that "games cause violence in children" may fall to the responsibility of the parents. It's pretty much fact that children are more impressionable - by the time we reach late teens we've more or less become who we are going to be for the rest of our lives, and will change afterwards more slowly. Also, by that time, most people understand the difference between games/movies and real life and use common sense to not emulate games. The fact that children are being allowed to play this more adult/mature games is solely the responsibility of the parents; they should be monitoring and regulating what their children consume in all forms (books, movies, TV, video games, etc), and have only themselves to blame if the children are influenced by the media they consume. At least, this is all my belief. Therefore, more stringent, thorough, and most of all apparent ratings systems should ultimately be more or less the solution to the problem. Don't restrict creativity; restrict consumption.