Daniel Golding

Abstract:
This article analyses the discourse surrounding the classification and regulation of videogames in Australia, with particular focus on the exclusion, and subsequent introduction of an R18+ rating over the twenty-year period between 1993-2013. This article argues that this period was characterised by a remarkable entropy and stasis within classification discourse, and that the introduction of the R18+ rating was eventually achieved by pro-R18+ advocates reaffirming the perceived validity and power of the core discourse. Thus, the history of videogame classification in Australia—with or without an R18+ rating—is the history of protection of children from inappropriate content, and mistrust of an interactive media form; these arguments underpin both the exclusion of an R18+ in the early 1990s and the inclusion of an R18+ in 2012. Finally, though a close analytical exploration of the history of videogame classification in Australia, this article argues that public discourse on classification has been subject to cynical media manipulation from almost all parties involved, which has resulted in a discursive entropy that has been largely disconnected with any understanding of how videogame culture and play is enacted in an everyday sense.