The Australian games breathed a big sigh of relief when their government vote through a new mature R18+ rating for video games earlier this summer.

Now it seems that they may have to wait a little bit longer than expected for the new age rating to actually appear on games down under.

Australian Classifications Branch's manager of applications David Emery said: "There is legislation that's been put to Parliament about the changes. What happens next is a long process again. It's probably going to take another couple of years before you're actually going to get an R18 that you can apply for, like a conventional classification that you have today."

Emery explained the adding: "It's got to go to Parliament, then there's changes that have to be made subsequent to that - to the Classification Act - to allow for people who have had a game that has gone to the classification board and been refused classification to then be resubmitted in some form. There also needs to changes made to each state and territories classification act, that needs to go through the exact same process that I've just described, except on a state level. All of those things take ages, there are lots of delays. The answer is that it'll probably be another couple of years before we'll be able to accept an application for an R18 game."

Thanks GamesIndustry.biz.

By Ewan Aiton