From The Age online dated March 11, 2011
Not long before it banned Mortal Kombat, the Board let a sexy spanking game, We Dare, through as PG, despite the game’s own publisher, Ubisoft, recommending it be rated M.
This follows on from Sex game to hit Australian stores and A Wii bit kinky: sexy spanking game rated PG but Mortal Kombat banned.
The decision to ban Mortal Kombat while giving the risqué We Dare a PG rating has revealed some interesting details about the federal government’s morality on censorship. Judging by the decisions, it appears that games promoting spanking, stripping and sexual partner swapping are acceptable for children while hardcore simulated on-screen violence is strictly off-limits.
It also found its way into this rather muddled opinion piece.
We Dare has caused a bit of an uproar generally, but most of it seems to have come from watching the promotional video for the game rather than playing it, a fact that hasn’t been lost on PEGI over in Europe who recently had this to say to eurogamer about the game and its advertising.
“The Committee concludes that the advertisement does NOT accurately reflect the nature and content of the product and it MISLEADS consumers as to its true nature.”
…
“It was correct to give the game a 12 rating,” PEGI said. “The content of the game and the interaction that the game itself implies do not warrant a higher rating.
“Marketing may have implied something else, but PEGI does not rate advertising, it rates game content. If people play the game, they will see that there is nothing inappropriate for ages 12 and older.”
There’s a conversation to be had about ratings, classification, sexual content, and their place in videogames, but We Dare is no more a ‘sexy spanking game’ than Call of Duty is a ‘murder simulator’ and maybe, just maybe, the classification board are doing their job.
And maybe, just maybe, employing the same sort of moral outrage tactics as critics of videogames do is perhaps not the smartest tack to take.
[Edit- clarified ‘game critics’]
An interesting summary of the uproar over this.
Just to clarify, in the last sentence where you say ‘game critics’, you mean ‘those that are critical of videogames’ not ‘those that write videogame criticism’, yeah?
I do indeed. Will edit the original to reflect that.
What a mess. A real mix of different issues going on here that have left a trail of really confused people.
– The advert has misrepresented the game so nobody knows what it’s about.
– Because everyone thinks the advert represents the actual game-play, they believe PEGI have banned it because the game is inappropriate for the age-group (They didn’t).
– The Age appears to think the game will therefore make 12 years have sex because they bought the hype.
– In it’s most confused moment the Age wonders why this child-sex game was passed and Mortal Combat wasn’t, citing that it proves there’s something wrong with our classification board.
– The Age now infers that it’s far better to have violent games then ‘sexy’ games.
– And Charles Waterstreet – what the hell are you talking about?
Agreed. It surprises me how messy it is and how limited the analysis & insight there is into these issues. This swathe of articles might mean well, but they also make a good case for the smarter outlet I talked about.
Actual in game footage from We Dare:
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2011/03/12/we-dare-footage-shows-pegi-rating-may-be-appropriate