Despite originally being banned by Microsoft, PEGI 18 rated computer games will now be available on the Windows Store after the Windows 8 launch last night on 25 October.

Windows 8 Store

The decision to restrict apps that contained mature content faced intense criticism from game developers, including Gabe Newell of Valve and Markus 'Notch' Perrson, creator of Minecraft.

In an interview with Gizmodo, Antoine Leblond, Windows Corporate Vice President of Web Services, explained that PEGI 18 games would now be permitted:

"This is to give developers a heads up that that's where we're goings o they can have the peace of mind around developing the kinds of games that will have those ratings.

"[The original policy] basically ends up disqualifying games that would be ESRB Mature...We want the world of desktop apps to keep existing. There's no reason to get in the way of that."

A blog post by independent Windows app developer Jeffrey Harmon has highlighted some of the issues surrounding the original Windows 8 App Certification Requirements.

In the post, he explains in detail the submission process he has had to go through to get his app onto the Windows Store and how, despite several amendments and alterations to his app, it has still not been accepted:

"I went through all of my code, cleaning up performance anywhere I could, and tried to fix anything that I wasn't 100% happy with. I submitted again, and failed again.

"A few days later, I got an email from John," Harmon continues "the person my support ticket was escalated to, saying that he thinks everything should be all set now, and to just re-submit.

"I resubmit and fail again for the same reasons. This time, it took six days to fail...Each submission was now becoming a lot more costly as the release of Windows 8 was starting to get closer.

"So far, I have sent/received 131 emails back and forth with various people within Microsoft.

"I have given my app, and even my source code, to multiple people within Microsoft. To date, not a single one of them has been able to cause it to crash, or fail a single test. Every issue that I have figured out, I found on my own, but the store still fails it. How do you debug that?"

Windows 8 and the Surface tablet launched last night. Windows Phone 8 is due for release on 29 October.

Microsoft