220 Games Have Been Banned in Australia in the Past Four Months

220 games have been banned in Australia in the last four months, marking a dramatic increase from prior years. That's according to an ABC Australia report, which analyzed numbers from the Australian Attorney General. During this time period, Australia refused classification to four times more video games than it did from 1994-2014 combined.

The increase came about because Australia is joining a new classification system for video games, called the International Age Rating Coalition. It's designed to help the government keep up with the huge number of games being sold digitally. Since the beginning of March, the country has participated in a pilot program for the system, which has resulted in the classification of 150,000 already released games. Although the details of how exactly this program works are unclear, most of the games that have been refused classification appear to be mobile games.

Australia's full participation in the global program begins tomorrow, on July 1. The system works by giving developers a form to complete. They're asked to categorize explicit content in their games. The IARC is meant to classify more games than the government can alone. The impetus to call out false reporting in the classification forms falls upon the players instead of the government.

Australia has been known for strictly rating video games, resulting in the removal of scenes from Saints Row 3 and the banning of Hotline Miami 2 and 2011's Mortal Kombat.