Guide
Classification in Australia, and settings for a shared household
Who decides how a computer game is classified here, why a rating shown on an overseas storefront is not the Australian answer, and how a household can set limits around an online game without guessing.
Two different questions get mixed together whenever a game comes up at home. The first is what classification a title carries in Australia, which is a matter of public record. The second is what a particular household is comfortable with, which is a matter for that household and is not settled by any rating. Keeping them apart makes both easier to answer.
Who classifies games in Australia
Films and computer games distributed in Australia are classified under a national scheme, and the Australian Classification Board is the body responsible for it. Its site explains the classification categories, describes the criteria that sit behind them, and publishes a searchable record of decisions.
That record is the authoritative answer for a specific title. Vertex Space does not state a classification for any game, does not describe any game as suitable or unsuitable for a particular age, and does not summarise the Board's criteria in its own words. Those are the Board's decisions, published on the Board's site, and a third-party paraphrase of them is a good way to be wrong in a way that matters.
Search the national classification record on the Board's website using the exact title of the game. Note the classification, the consumer advice that accompanies it, and the date of the decision. If a title does not appear, that is worth knowing too, and the Board's site explains what falls inside and outside the scheme.
Why an overseas rating is not the answer
A storefront serving customers worldwide may display a rating issued by a body in another country, or an age label of the platform's own. Those are not Australian classification decisions and they are not interchangeable with one. Ratings systems differ in their categories, in the criteria behind them and in how particular content is treated, so a label that looks familiar can mean something quite different from the Australian decision on the same title.
Where a household is making a decision, the Australian record is the one with standing here. Where a title has no Australian decision on record, the household is making the judgement itself, and it helps to know that rather than to assume a foreign label has settled it.
The same caution applies to the age advice a studio prints on its own marketing. It may be accurate, it may reflect a decision made in another market, and it carries no weight in Australia either way. Read it as the studio's opinion and check the record.
What classification does not cover
A classification describes the content of the product as it was submitted. It does not describe what happens once a game is connected to other people, and in an online multiplayer title that is where most parental concern actually sits.
- Other players. Voice and text chat with strangers is not part of a classification decision. Whether it is available, and whether it can be turned off, is a setting inside the game.
- Spending. What a store sells, and whether any of it is randomised, is a commercial question. The spending guide covers the mechanisms and the Australian consumer position.
- Time. Match-based games are designed to be picked up repeatedly. Session length is managed by the household or the platform, not by the classification.
- Contact outside the game. Conversations that begin in a match often continue on a chat platform with different rules and no classification at all.
None of that makes classification unimportant. It settles the question of what the product contains, which is the part a household cannot easily assess from a trailer or a description. It simply does not settle the question of what an evening of play with strangers will be like, and treating it as though it does leads to unpleasant surprises in both directions — a title that is fine on paper and difficult in practice, or one that sounds alarming and turns out to be a group of people co-operating badly at tank driving.
Where Australian guidance for families comes from
The eSafety Commissioner is Australia's independent regulator for online safety. Its site publishes material written for parents and carers about online gaming, including how to talk about it and what settings to look for, and it operates reporting schemes for certain kinds of serious online harm. It is the most useful starting point for an Australian household, and it is not funded by anybody selling a game.
For the security side of the same problem — account takeovers, scams aimed at younger players, unsafe downloads — the Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes practical guidance, and the account safety guide on this site points at the relevant parts of it.
Settings worth configuring once
The aim of the list below is a set of decisions that do not need revisiting every time something new is installed. Most of the useful controls are not in the game at all. They are in the operating system, the platform account and the router, and they hold across every title installed later.
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Separate accounts on the computer
A standard user account for a younger player, rather than a shared administrator account, prevents unapproved installations and keeps settings from being changed by accident. It takes a few minutes on Windows, macOS or Linux and is the single most durable step.
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Family controls at the platform level
Operating systems and game storefronts provide parental controls covering purchases, downloads and time limits. Configuring these once means new games inherit the limits instead of each one needing its own negotiation.
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Payment out of reach
No stored card on the account a child uses, and purchase authentication turned on everywhere. Prepaid balances make the limit visible to everyone involved.
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Communication settings inside the game
Find the voice chat, text chat, friend request and reporting controls on the first day. Decide what is on, and show the younger player how to mute, block and report rather than expecting them to find it during an unpleasant match.
Controls handle the mechanical questions. They do not handle the conversation about what to do when something in a game is upsetting, and a household in which that conversation has happened tends to hear about problems earlier. eSafety's material is written to help start it, and is more useful than any list of toggles, this one included.
A note on the setting itself
Games set in the Second World War raise a question that classification answers only partly: how a real conflict, within living memory for some families, is being depicted and how a younger player understands it. Different households will reach different conclusions about that, and it is not a question a classification category or an advertising description is designed to settle. It is worth thinking about separately from the mechanical concerns of chat, spending and time, and it is one of the reasons this site avoids describing any game as suitable for anyone.