At the request of South Australian attorney-general John Rau, Australia’s Classification Board has decided to review the ratings of 12 games already classified and released in the country.
As reported earlier, Rau claims that despite a government agreement earlier this year to introduce a new R18+ mature rating and enforce the country’s MA15+ classification for games, several titles with adult ratings overseas, including Killer is Dead, The Walking Dead and Atlus’ God Mode, have gone on sale in Australia with the less stringent MA15+ classification.
The Classification Board will review the following titles in November and December meetings:
Alien Rage
Borderlands 2 Expansion Packs
Company of Heroes 2
Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut
Deadpool
Fuse
Gears of War: Judgment
God Mode
Killer is Dead
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
The Walking Dead: 400 Days
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
The Australian Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) criticised the move. “Not only have these games already been examined against stringent guidelines, we also haven’t heard of any formal complaints made by parents or adults who think the video games are wrongly classified,” said IGEA CEO Ron Curry. “The review is an unwarranted and costly exercise to satisfy a vocal yet unrepresentative minority.”
