Player guide
Classification, minors and household rules
Who classifies computer games in Australia, where those decisions are published, what a classification does not tell you, and how a household can settle the questions that sit outside the scheme.
Quick answer
Classification decisions for computer games sold or distributed in Australia are made under the national classification scheme and published in a searchable database. Look the title up there rather than relying on a restatement, including this one. Then treat the separate questions — optional purchases, voice chat with strangers, time spent — as household decisions, because the classification does not resolve them.
How the scheme works, in outline
Australia classifies films and computer games under a national scheme with a statutory basis. The Classification Board makes decisions, the Classification Review Board reconsiders them where a review is sought, and the decisions are recorded publicly. Classifications are accompanied by consumer advice — short descriptions of the content that drove the decision, such as references to violence or online interactivity — and that advice is frequently more useful to a parent than the classification letter itself.
The operative point for a reader of this site is that the decisions are published rather than inferred. There is a searchable record, maintained by the body that made the decision, at classification.gov.au. Any third-party page that tells you how a game is classified is repeating that record, with whatever errors and staleness the repetition introduces.
Why no classification appears on this site
Prowave does not restate the classification of any title it covers. Classifications can change when a game is resubmitted after substantial modification, and an online game that is continually updated is exactly the kind of product where that happens. A classification restated here and then superseded becomes a misleading statement published by this site, and under the Australian Consumer Law that is the publisher's problem regardless of good faith. Linking the Board's own database costs the reader one click and is always current.
What a classification does not answer
A classification is a judgement about content against published guidelines. It is not a judgement about suitability for a particular child, and it is silent on several things that determine whether an online game works in a given household:
- Who your player will be talking to
- Online multiplayer games in this genre put players into teams with strangers, often with voice or text chat available. The behaviour in those channels is not classified, because it does not exist until it happens.
- What the game will ask to be paid
- Optional purchases, premium accounts and randomised items sit inside the commercial design of the game rather than in its content, and their presence is a separate question for a household to settle.
- How much time it will absorb
- Progression systems in this category are long by design. That is neither a defect nor a content issue; it is a structural fact that a household should know before, rather than after, the install.
- Whether the experience changes
- A live online game is updated continuously. The game a household assessed in March is not exactly the game being played in November.
Paid randomised items
Some free-to-play games sell items whose contents are not known until after purchase, and some include mechanics that resemble gambling without involving money leaving the game. Australian classification requirements in this area have been the subject of legislative amendment, and the current position is set out by the classification authorities themselves. The correct source is classification.gov.au, and a household making a decision about a minor should read the current requirements there rather than any summary.
Prowave takes a flat position on this and states it openly: no game covered on this site is presented as suitable for children. The library exists to help an adult choose a game, or to help an adult assess one on behalf of a household, and a title that sells randomised items is a title an adult should be making that assessment about with the facts in front of them.
Who answers which question
| The question | Who answers it | Where |
|---|---|---|
| How is this title classified, and what is the consumer advice? | Classification Board | classification.gov.au |
| How do we handle chat, contact from strangers or online abuse? | eSafety Commissioner | esafety.gov.au |
| What are our rights if a digital purchase fails or is misdescribed? | ACCC | accc.gov.au |
| Someone is targeting the account with a scam. What now? | Scamwatch and the Australian Cyber Security Centre | scamwatch.gov.au, cyber.gov.au |
| What does the publisher do with a player's personal information? | The publisher's privacy policy, with rights explained by the OAIC | oaic.gov.au |
| What does this game require of a computer? | The game's publisher | The publisher's own requirements page; see the requirements guide |
Setting household rules that survive contact with a game
Rules written in general terms tend to collapse at the first argument. Rules attached to specific mechanics tend to hold, because there is nothing to interpret. A workable set for this genre looks like this:
- The account's email address and two-factor method are held by an adult, not by the player.
- No payment method is stored on the account. Purchases, if any, are made deliberately by an adult each time.
- Voice chat with strangers is either off or supervised, decided once rather than negotiated per session.
- Time is bounded by something external — a clock, a number of matches — rather than by the game's own sense of a stopping point, which is designed not to arrive.
- The classification entry and consumer advice for the title have been read by the adult who is agreeing to the install.
- Reporting tools inside the game are shown to the player before they need them.
Where household controls are weaker than they look
- Platform-level parental controls generally cover purchases and time, not the behaviour of other players in a match.
- A control set on one device does nothing on a second device where the same account is used.
- Age gates at sign-up are self-declared and stop nobody who is prepared to type a different year.
- Free-to-play titles can be installed without a payment step, so a purchase control is never a substitute for a conversation about what gets installed.
Coming back to it
A live service game changes, and so does the player. A decision taken at install is worth revisiting after a month, with two specific questions rather than a general one: has anything been bought, and has anything happened in chat worth knowing about. Both are easier to ask early and routinely than to raise for the first time when something has gone wrong. The eSafety Commissioner's material on gaming and family technology agreements at esafety.gov.au is written for exactly that conversation.