Fewer G and PG-rated computer games hitting Australian shores

The Classifications Board refused just two of the 392 video games it considered in the past 12 months - Dayz and Song of Memories.

Dayz is a survival zombie game, where the player must kill zombies infected with a plague. It was refused because the player can access cannabis to restore health. Song of Memories requires players to find a soulmate in a monster apocalypse world. It includes a section in which a group of boys decide to kill a character called Yuno, who can spread the infection because she is female. The boys speak of having watched Yuno doing gymnastics at school, which "made [them] hard", one asks to "borrow" her for a bit before she is killed, and a sexual attack follows, according to the board's annual report for 2018-19.

G and PG-rated games appear to be on the wane, although this is disputed by the Classification Board which said its data doesn't suggest a lower proportion of games are being classified G and PG. They made up 83 per cent of games classified in 2008-09, the annual reports show. In the most recent year, just 51 per cent for G or PG. M-rated games are up from 11 per cent of classifications a decade ago to 28 per cent.

Six per cent of games were rated MA15+ a decade ago. That has jumped to 19 per cent. Just 0.5 per cent of games are refused classification, a rate that has remained steady.

The review board's annual report shows classifications for publications have fallen away to just 28 in the year, compared with about 200 five years ago.

Director Margaret Anderson said the board wanted a PG13 classification for computer games and films, which would sit above PG but below M - a classification it also called for last year. She had put the view to Communications Minster Paul Fletcher.

She said the communications department was now reviewing the guidelines to ensure they reflected contemporary Australian values.

She points to data showing 42 per cent of people aged 65 over played video games. Twenty-one per cent of households had a virtual reality headset, and sales of video games had grown 19 per cent over six years.

Last year, a Senate inquiry called for a complete review of "loot boxes" in video games, concerned about the similarity with gambling. This year, the government rejected the call, saying research of the impact of loot boxes was in its infancy and it was too early for more regulation.

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Ms Anderson said she had made it clear to the inquiry that there was no simple definition of loot box and she would be very concerned if there was a sweeping requirement for a specific rating for all games containing loot boxes.

The board's annual report shows seven computer games were rated 18+: They were This is the Police 2, Resident Evil 2, Mortal Kombat 11, Zombie Army 4, Uppers, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and Yu-No. Uppers includes a "panty lottery" as a reward for knocking out an enemy. The lottery includes female onlookers revealing their underwear, and a scene in which the player's face lands between a girl's spread legs.

Wolfenstein has extreme violence, such as a scene where a man's head is shot off, blood covers a young woman's face, and she comments "I got his brains in my mouth".

Seventy-five games were classified MA15+ in the 2018-19 year, including Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, which included extreme blood gore and blood splatter involving zombies, but the Classification Board said the violence was mitigated by the supernatural context.

In another 15+ game, Gun Gun Pixies, the female pixie characters can be dressed in outfits including "sweet chocolate", which has dollops of chocolate covering the nipples and groin, and options for close-ups of those areas, including up-skirt views. Female characters are also depicted in underwear performing yoga poses and as the pixies fire targets at parts of their bodies they moan and the player is rewarded with heart-shaped tokens, the Classification Board says.