Starting today, Australia will start banning mobile and online games that fail to meet specific standards laid out by the International Age Rating Coalition. The government has entered a pilot program with the IARC to in an attempt to fully classify the hundreds of games that are released monthly. This new program has also been adopted by the USA, the UK, Canada, Brazil and most of Europe.
The volume of games released on a monthly basis has more than crippled the government's ability to classify games individually and this new program will help them clear the backlog of unclassified material. Developers will be asked to fill out an extensive form regarding the content of its games, including specific sexual content and other possibly offensive material. After the game is rated, the government will largely depend on consumer feedback, whether the rating is appropriate and participating countries that uses the program will be notified of such changes.
In an interview with ABC, a spokesperson for the Attorney-General's department said, "After 12 months, classification ministers will determine whether the IARC tool should be a permanent part of the Australian classification scheme." In preparation for today's pilot, the a large bulk of the unclassified backlog was processed - 150,000 games to date. Any titles with a refused classification category will not be sold, advertised or publicly exhibit in Australia.
It is more than likely that this new IARC tool will become the global standard once it gains support from other countries. IGEA CEO, Ron Curry, explains that 180,000-200,000 games were released over the last year. In the same amount of time, the Classification Board was only able to do 400. If you're worried that this tool might be the gatekeeper for all games to come, the IARC tool promises that each game classified will be calibrated to the sensitivities of each participating nation.
