World of Warcraft finally rated in Australia

Posted Oct 9th 2009 11:00AM by John Callaham
Filed under: World of Warcraft

You may remember a while ago that the wonky Australian game ratings system allowed MMO titles like World of Warcraft to be sold in stores in that country, even though the ratings system never assigned such games with a rating. Normally such a situation would have banned a game from being sold. Now GameSpot is reporting that has changed for World of Warcraft and its two expansion pack as they have all received an "M" rating with an extra note saying "online content variable."

The game's publisher Blizzard stated that they have been trying to get the game rated in Australia since World of Warcraft's release in 2004 and that "recent changes" in the ratings board have allowed such titles to receive a rating. However the Australian Classification Board isn't talking about those changes, saying only, "The Classification Board has been following developments in online gaming."

Tags: australia, blizzard, blizzard-entertainment, world-of-warcraft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

I'm not familiar with the Australian Ratings system, but is M rating above T there? Seems odd that WoW would get a T rating in the US, but M in Australia.Posted at 1:00PM on Oct 9th 2009 by RogueJedi86

I'm not familiar with the Australian Ratings system, but is M rating above T there? Seems odd that WoW would get a T rating in the US, but M in Australia.Posted at 1:11PM on Oct 9th 2009 by RogueJedi86

T is similar to M, and M for ESRB is similar to MA15+ in Aus. There is no AO rating in Aus however.

I suppose it's nice of Blizzard to go through the effort to get a rating for it, even though online games are exempt from classification. Helping parents I suppose.Posted at 2:20AM on Oct 10th 2009 by smi04