CENSORSHIP ISSUES

- Anon.

My pleas in this section are addressed particularly to those Australian authorities who have banned Phantasmagoria so that no citizens under their supervision, regardless of their age, can play this game and make up their own minds about it. I am twenty-four years old and have attained the right to smoke, drink alcohol, drive a car, and raise a family. These are all responsible real world activities with clearly understood real world consequences. Phantasmagoria on the other hand presents a purely fictitious (ie. not real) situation whose outcome has no impact on the real world.

On top of this comes the disgraceful realisation that some censorship officials don't have the time or inclination to play through or even understand interactive computer game titles such as this one and thus cannot do them justice when allocating censorship ratings. Such ratings are usually far more severe than those given to the same product in Europe and the United States. Cartoon/animated games in the style of Doom and Quake are routinely designated "MA" (Mature Adult 15+) - the highest rating allowed for games. Titles classified any higher are officially prohibited from sale to everyone.

Australian government bureaucrats do not realise that many of the game players of today are adults - not children - who can make up their own minds about what is entertaining for them and what is objectionable without the reactionary interference of an incompetent and totally unsympathetic third party. To allow the distribution of computer games containing content similar to that found in "R" (18+) and even "X" (18+ contains explicit sex) rated movies and restrict their sale to adults only as is currently done with videos seems to me to be the way to go. Remember, as with most forms of entertainment, no one is forced to watch or play a computer game. Restricting access to adults only is far from allowing the game's compulsory purchase or viewing by members of the general public. Why can people my age not be trusted to see and emotionally handle something any adult overseas can view and is really no more violent or sexually explicit than many popular movies containing similar content? What are the censors afraid of? This is totally discriminatory! I thought the trend in the 1990s was to remove all forms of discrimination, not impose new ones.

Phantasmagoria provides its own optional internal censor function, "conveniently" ignored by the human censors, that blurs the more explicit visual details of some of the non-interactive cut scenes. However, anyone with even a limited degree of imagination can easily guess what is going on. More effectively, any "disturbing" scene may be skipped simply by pressing the Esc key. There is no excuse for anyone to sit through anything they find difficult to watch - quite unlike the situation experienced by traditional moviegoers. Furthermore, if Phantasmagoria (or indeed any other computer game) is found to be strongly offensive to an individual, one must wonder why the game was purchased and played by that person. Why not play something else or no games at all? After all, consumers always have freedom of choice - if you object to a title, don't buy it, but let others make that same choice for themselves.

I for one did not object to any of the clearly fictional controversial scenes presented in Phantasmagoria and, from the Review, it should be obvious that the character I controlled was far from a heartless perpetrator of mayhem and violence. Indeed, her only violent actions were undertaken in desperate cases of self-defence, and even then she committed them reluctantly. If anything, any sane, rational adult who plays this game will probably become even more intolerant of violent actions in the real world as Phantasmagoria strongly promotes the moral message that violence is horrific, ugly, very hurtful, and is never the desirable answer to anyone's problems. Everyone who commits a violent act is punished in some way, usually by death. Contrast this message with that promulgated by most permitted action gaming titles where the simulated violence is often unrealistically portrayed and encouraged of the desensitised player.

1. Removal of all references and implications in all Australian legislation and associated documentation related to the classification of computer and video games that adults do not play or have a right to play these consumer products.
2. Removal of the separate classification schedule and guidelines that currently apply only to computer and video games.
3. Classification of computer and video games to be performed in an identical way to the classification of films as they are no more psychologically harmful or have any less widespread appeal than that older form of popular entertainment.
4. Games rated "MA", "R", and "X" under the new classification system to be restricted by law to persons over a certain age. Thus, "R" and "X" type games will not be banned to everyone as they are at the moment.
5. Review of the classification decisions for all computer and video games that have been classified "RC" (banned) to date.
6. No further regulations of a restrictive nature to be imposed on computer and video games without extensive community consultation and approval. In particular, this includes consultation with gamers on the Internet and through computer and video game magazines.

- Judge Robert H. Jackson.