A quiet revolution took place in the games industry this week when publishers' trade body ELSPA launched its Voluntary Age Rating Scheme. Until this point games were either BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) classified or they weren't. Games which had a particularly high 'yikes!' factor carried the same symbols as video and cinema releases, but the vast majority had no age suitability guidance at all. In an unprecedented surge of collective responsibility, almost every software publisher embraced the system, ensuring its success. What decent chaps, you might think.

The reality was that if the industry hadn't done something it was in very real danger of having the government of the day, prompted by lobby groups, force through its own draconian measures. This would have resulted in every software release having to undertake a slow, rambling journey through the sleepy chambers of the BBFC, adding thousands to development costs and months to release dates - which only ever seem to be aspirational anyway. And if the BBFC had taken exception to any title's content, and demanded cuts, the hapless publisher would have probably had to either junk the title or start all over again, as trying to remove certain scenes from a tangle of code is notoriously difficult.

This was recognised by Tony Pickup, MD of the day's leading retailer Future Zone (now EB), who publicly stated that his stores would refuse to stock any product which didn't carry the ELSPA ratings, and that: "If a lot of firms aren't in line by August then you can forget the scheme and start looking forward to the government telling us what to do." Happily, the scheme is now held up by the government as an example of how successful industry-wide self-regulation can be, and has been widely adopted in other countries. Which is nice.