For the classification inquiry the ALRC has received a record-breaking 2452 submissions.

"And why is games relevant to this? About 10 days out from our deadline for responses to the issues paper we had received about 80 submissions... and then word got out among the games community that gamers were not submitting top the classification review and there were issues in the classification review they should engage with."

The word spread through Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media that if "gamers don't get into this space other people will set the agenda". In the course of a week, the number of submissions the ALRC received went from 80 to more than a thousand. Not all were from people from an interest in the classification of games, but a lot were, Flew said.

The final report of the ALRC on the classification review is expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2012. Even if the recommended changes to the classification scheme are adopted, it will still "probably going to take another couple of years before you're actually going to get an R18 you can apply for like a conventional classification that you have today," said David Emery from the Classification Branch, which is a public body supporting the operations of the Classification Board.

Emery said that the "legacy system" of classification that Australia has been saddled with is a product of the R18 issue not being "alive" when the current classification scheme was created: "Games are for kids, kids shouldn't have R material, and that's how it was; we've ended up with a legacy system... the fact of the matter is that it took a long time for a head of steam to get up from the gaming community to call for R18. It's really only been the last 18 months it's come onto the government's radar in a significant form."