Australian Government to reform game classification

Oh good, the Australian Federal Government has realised that the way we classify games in Australia is really stupid and antiquated – so they’ve taken recommendations from the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association and the Australian Law Reform Commission to take steps to a more streamlined and considering approach.

 The legislation had its first reading yesterday, submitted by Minister for Justice Michael Keenan. He had this to say on the matter:

“The Coalition Government is committed to providing consumers and industry with a modernised National Classification System that is better equipped to manage content in a rapidly changing, global and convergent media environment,”

“These reforms are the first step in the process of ensuring our classification system continues to be effective and relevant in the 21st century.”

So there’s a couple of reasons for this move. Mainly because it’s about bloody time, and all mobile games sold in Australia are currently unclassified. This effectively undermines the current classification act. Proposed is an online questionnaire to make it easy for overseas developers to have their games classified.

It’s good that the system is finally getting an overhaul to keep up with the times. Obviously my fellow aussies are hoping this means games won’t be needlessly censored or refused classification.

It’s good to know the games industry makes a big enough splash in the ocean to be considered relevant by our mostly backward and out of touch government. Although it seems that it’s more about reforming the logistics of classification rather than changing the standards of how they classify things. In any case, I hope this leads to less crap censorship.

Last Updated: April 2, 2014