Australian game classification system ‘ridiculous’

Tom Crago, the president of the Game Developers Association of Australia, has labelled the country’s video games classification system as “ridiculous and antiquated” following the decision to ban Piranha Bytes’ Risen owing to references to sex and drugs.

Risen was refused a certificate as its adult content was deemed unsuitable for those under the age of 15. And since Australia currently lacks an ‘Adult’ or ‘Mature’ certificate for games, the title has now effectively been banned.

“We are once again caught in this awful, ridiculous web of the antiquated classification system that we all have to endure,” Crago ranted in a radio interview, according to ITwire.

“We are looking at a videogame industry that is very different from what it was twenty years ago. We are the butt of a lot of jokes. I travel a lot, talking to other developers and publishers and people cannot believe it that we still have this ridiculous system here in Australia, designed twenty or thirty years ago, and hasn’t changed since.

“The sooner that changes, the better. It is obviously a battle to ensure common sense prevails. We will get there eventually, but in the meantime as gamers in Australia we suffer, and to be honest we are embarrassed at how backward our government is.”

Recent titles to suffer a similar fate at the hands of the Australian censors include Silent Hill: Homecoming and FEAR 2: Project Origin.

The GDAA is not the first body to speak out on the Aussie censorship issue, with Fallout developer Bethesda voicing its frustrations last year. There had at one stage been talk of a new ‘R’ rating being introduced in the territory, but these plans have met with opposition from pro-censorship campaigners.