Underage Gaming Research (September 2005)
Though it is illegal to supply restricted video games to an underage person, a lot of people think young people are playing them. In 2005, the Classification Office decided to find out by asking a group of 16 and 17 year olds to indicate which games on a list of R18 and banned video games they had played.
The research was done through a survey of students at a Censor for a Day event
We surveyed 331 students from Wellington, Napier, and New Plymouth in Term 1 2005. Students were given a list of titles of video games classified as R18 or banned in New Zealand, and asked to indicate which games they had played and how they had got them (for example, rented from a shop or borrowed from a friend). Students were not told the classifications of the games on the list.
We found that many 15-17 year olds had played R18 or banned games
62% of the students surveyed said they had played at least one of the 26 games on the list. 10% reported playing at least one of the two banned games on the list.
The Grand Theft Auto games were the most commonly played game from those on the list
37% of the students surveyed had played Grand Theft Auto Vice City, and 37% also reported playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. 35% had played GTA 2 and 30% said that they had played GTA 3.
Males were more likely to have played an R18 or banned game than females
87% of the male students reported playing one of the games on the list, while only 51% of females said they had played one of the games.
The research showed that, at the time, a lot of stores were selling games to underage people
43% said they had bought R18 games themselves from the shops. 35% said that their parents usually bought the games for them. This was of concern to the Classification Office as a restriction on a game means that it has been determined that it will be injurious to the public good if underage people have access to it. In the conclusion of the research, it was noted:
Giving persons under the age of 18 years access to restricted games is illegal. Our greatest concern is that giving children and teenagers access to R18 games increases the odds that some of these young people will grow up to become adults who will contribute to a society that normalises nonchalant and callous attitudes to violent behaviour, and that becomes more inured to or ignorant of the consequences of violence, consequences that no civil society should tolerate.
