R18+ draft guidelines released

MP Brendan O'Connor has released his draft guidelines to adopting an R18 rating - we've had a look, and reads bloody well!

Brendan Connor, the Federal Minister for Justice, has within the last hour released a draft guideline in support of introducing an R18 rating for games.

News has popped up on Kotaku and elsewhere, though we got wind thanks to the ever-diligent hectorbustnuts on our forums. Well done that man.

You can read the full draft on the Classification website, but here are the salient points:

Classification categories
The Act names the classification categories for computer games, and the Code describes them. The categories are:
- G
- PG
- M
- MA 15+
- R 18+
- RC

And:

The Code
Under the Code, classification decisions are to give effect, as far as possible, to the following principles:

(a) adults should be able to read, hear, see and play what they want;

(b) minors should be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them;

© everyone should be protected from exposure to unsolicited material that they find offensive;

(d) the need to take account of community concerns about:
(i) depictions that condone or incite violence, particularly sexual violence; and
(ii) the portrayal of persons in a demeaning manner.

Interestingly, the breakdowns between what's allowable under a re-worked MA15 and R18, especially in terms of sex and violence, suggests that a game like LA Noire (which we commented on recently in terms of its classification) is most definitely worthy of an R18 rating.

This guide has been put together and distributed to Ministers ahead of a July meeting on the decision.