Following the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) board's refusal to rate Dark Sector (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) for its Australian release comes some good news for the Australian gaming community.

The Australian federal government has revealed  that it is currently considering an R-rating for videogames (and that's across all platforms, not just 360 and PS3, as in the case of Dark Sector).

So far, the highest age restriction a game can receive is MA, which encompasses the 15-plus certificate bracket. With this current rating system, any title deemed inappropriate for an MA-rating (like, say, Dark Sector) is refused classification.So... This R-rating, which is similar to the 18-rating in the UK, could open doors for more adult titles in the country.

As expected, this move may not sit well with various organizations such as the Australian Family Association which feels that explicit videogames are potentially more dangerous than films due to the interaction of the user:

We're concerned about the level of violence and so on in R-rated material. But in terms of the games, it seems that there's a lot more scope to actually change people's brain structure and their attitudes with games.