Where people get things wrong is thinking that introducing this R18 category will let in some flood of "depraved" games - it's simply not correct! If anything, it will help bring to light some of these games that do not belong in the hands of children.

Part of the reason why kids are playing these games at the moment is because parents are so confused about the classification system - most of them are not even aware that the system is different for video games!

He's also quoting games that are years old, and simply are not available anymore, and even games that, even with an R18 rating, wouldn't be introduced anyway! It's classic scaremongering techniques, nothing more.

The level of "interaction" and reasoning that it affects you more than tv or movies is simply baseless heresay - in fact, recent studies by universities in this country have shown that there's ZERO causality between the behaviour of someone who does play games to those who don't.

There are games being released now which I personally feel are inappropriate for children (I'm a 30 year old male), but because there's no R18 category, they're being shoe-horned into the MA, meaning that children are buying inappropriate games now. If Atkinson is REALLY serious about his cause, then he'll understand that introducing this category will help protect the children from getting their hands on these games.

..... to be continued....

And the whole "but they'll still get their hands on it" is a ridiculous sand-bag of a retort. If that's his honest stance, why isn't he calling for cigarettes to be banned? Why isn't he calling for alcohol to be banned? These are two things that are commonplace in our society that are directly linked as the cause of hundreds and thousands of deaths in this country every single year - yet I cannot find a single story in this country of a death that was caused as a direct result of exposure to video games?

It seems absolutely stupid to me why Michael Atkinson wouldn't take this opportunity to not only introduce this new rating to help do what he wants and "protect the children"? He can totally overhaul the classification system to make it one linear path that's clear and easy to understand, start a new advertising campaign to educate the masses, and introduce harsh penalties for those who break these laws. If Michael Atkinson was serious about his role as a representative of the people of not just South Australia, but of Australia as a whole, then he'd man-up and take some responsibility.

This is NOT an issue that will go away.