Tag Archives: classification

This is awesome. According to this Times piece, the law governing the sale of classified material in the UK was never enacted. Yep: it isn’t illegal to sell classified games to under-agers in Britain.

“The important thing is that we close this loophole as quickly as possible,” said a Home Office spokesperson.

“No one should see this as a green light to act unlawfully. We will continue to prosecute breaches vigorously once this technical loophole is closed.”

The “error” was only spotted after recent UK games classification changes started coming into effect.

Jeremy Hunt, Shadow Culture Secretary, said: “Much of the problem would have been avoided if they had sorted out the classification of video games earlier, as we and many others in the industry have been urging them to do.”

A trillion facepalms. What a fucking shower.

Update: ELSPA’s told publishers to carry on rating games as normal. No shit. Full thing on GI.

MMOs will now be classified in Australia in the same manner as single-player games, the Sydney Morning Herald’s reported this morning, and retailers will no longer be able to sell online games that haven’t been rated by the OFLC.

The move directly affects sales of the likes of World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, which never applied for OFLC classification as they don’t contain a single-player element.

Just ban everything, Australia. It’d be easier.

More on IGN.

Singapore has announced plans to introduce a new ratings system for games, two include only two levels of age restriction: Mature 18 (M18) and Age Advisory.

According to this Xinhuanet.com report, “M18 is a restricted category for persons 18 years old and above with retailers required to conduct an age check at the point of sales.

“Age Advisory is suitable for persons 16 years old and above. It is an advisory category to assist consumers in making informed choices. While retailers need not conduct age checks at the point of sale, they are encouraged to exercise responsibility by not selling these games to those below 16 years of age.”

More through the link.