Rating and Censorship/Rating Laws/Video Recordings Act 1984
International Game Developers Association
The contents of Rating and Censorship/Rating Laws/Video Recordings Act 1984 are in-development. Please be patient while changes are formulated. Thank you!| Video Recordings Act 1984 |
| Homepage |
| Wikipedia page |
| Date: 1984 |
Region(s):  United Kingdom
|
| Game Ratings and Censorship |
The Video Recordings Act 1984 is the main piece of relevant legislation that applies to the United Kingdom. Although the majority of games remained exempt from classification under the act, the BBFC consider those games that included, amongst other things, gross violence, sexual activity, nudity and criminal acts.
The law was generally made more clear for video games in 1994 with the introduction of the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act 1994, where video games specifically came under digital media.
Since games usually are high-end violent or sexual content to be considered classification by the BBFC, taking note of the BBFC's artistic merit policy may be important, which is a recent development that allows artistic sexual content in 18, rather then R18 films. For violence, fantasy violence is usually viewed more leniently.
The law originated from a media frenzy over "video nasties", where violent films in the cinema were being made available with no restriction on purchase on video. The act was put in place, although the restrictions on videos were much more strict them films, and some popular films at the time had no video release due to no certification of them (More information).
[edit] Games Rated under the law
Any game rated by the classifying organisation (which has always been the BBFC) usually has an age rating associated with it. It is an offence to supply video works to individuals who are (or appear to be) under the age of the classification designated. Selling something deemed needing a classification certificate, but not having one, is also illegal.
Trading Standards in the UK usually deal with offending parties who sell games to underage people.
Since the highest rating, without refusal of certification, is 18, any adult-orientated games can be brought by someone who is at least 18.
