Fallout 3 is banned in Australia

[Swonker]

The rumors are true and it's bad news once again for gamers Down Under: Bethesda's hotly anticipated post-nuclear RPG Fallout 3 (http://fallout.bethsoft.com/) has been refused classification in Australia.
The website for the government's Office of Film and Literature Classification (http://www.classification.gov.au/special.html?n=46&p=156&sTitle=fallout+3&sMature=1&sMediaGames=1&sDateFromM=1&sDateFromY=2008&sDateToM=12&sDateToY=2008&record=228415) indicates the game has been refused a rating classification, which functionally bans its sale in Australia. Unfortunately, the OFLC website does not provide information regarding the specific reasons for a classification refusal, but according to Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19337), which uncovered the decision, the denied rating could be the result of the country's "inflexible" regulations regarding in-game displays of drug use.
Bethesda can apply for a review of the decision at a cost of just under $8000, but appeals and reversals of classification refusals in Australia seem quite rare; most developers faced with similar obstacles opt to modify their games in order to make it more palatable for Australian release. While Rockstar Games (http://www.rockstargames.com/) had a famous and ultimately successful tussle (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/82335) with the British Board of Film Classification (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/) over the release of Manhunt 2 (http://www.rockstargames.com/manhunt2) in the U.K., the industry bad-boys chose to cut content (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/82957) from the Australian version of Grand Theft Auto IV (http://www.rockstargames.com/iv) in order to get it past the country's censors.
Bethesda Softworks has declined to comment on the Classification Board's decision.


Source: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/84900-Fallout-3-Banned-in-Australia

[Shawn Hopkins]

This is too bad. They've already censored the thing by taking out killable children.

I just don't understand why some countries take such a hardline against video games. Fallout 3 is definitely aimed at adults, in fact I can't see it having much kid appeal at all, and should be sold as such. It's too bad that consenting Aussie adults have to be told by the state that they can't play a game because the government doesn't like what's portrayed within.

[Juu-kuchi]

For some reason I expect Yahtzee potentially giving a sound verbal thrashing of this news now.

[TacoHunter]

Its stuff like this that makes me truly love being an American. Every single law that has come up to force censorship in the States have always been shot down thanks to that awesome power of the Bill of Rights.

It always irks me to see other nations have such belittling attitude for their people. Do they really believe that they're nation is made up of such morons?

Well, in the case of Australia maybe...it was founded by the criminals of Britain after all...

[Goodfellow]

Not surprising, as they have no sense of humor. We are talking about the country that banned Leisure Suit Larry after all.

[Anyone00]

Link (http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2008/07/olfc_report_why_fallout_3_was_banned_in_australia.html)

Yup, it's a result of the drug use.

[felixthunder]

It always irks me to see other nations have such belittling attitude for their people. Do they really believe that they're nation is made up of such morons?

Well, in the case of Australia maybe...it was founded by the criminals of Britain after all...


You seem to like belittling people yourself.It irks me as you would put it for American's to say such things.

In my opinion just to justify you're own existence and way of life.

I have been to america an its no better or worse then where i come from,

Just people have a worse attitude.

[TacoHunter]

You seem to like belittling people yourself.It irks me as you would put it for American's to say such things.

In my opinion just to justify you're own existence and way of life.

I have been to america an its no better or worse then where i come from,

Just people have a worse attitude.

That was just a bit of tongue and cheek. I didn't really mean anything by it. I apologize if you can't take some laughs at the founding of Australia. I was thinking about poking fun at America too, talking about how we were founded by the all religious nuts that Europe didn't want. But I didn't get around to it. I felt talking about crazy evangelicals would have been a bit off topic.

Anyway, Europe and by extension Australia have some very odd censorship laws. Video games can't possibly progress as an art form in these areas. But of course are video games art, I guess is another question altogether.

[Anyone00]

Link (http://gamesblog.ugo.com/index.php/gamesblog/more/official_word_on_the_fallout_3_changes_morphine_now_med_x/)



Official Word on the Fallout 3 Changes: Morphine Now Med-X

Posted by Russ Frushtick (aka Rusty) on 09/10 at 10:15 AM
There’s been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about changes that were made to Fallout 3 so that the game wasn’t banned in certain territories (most notably Austraila). It was revealed yesterday by Edge Online (http://www.edge-online.com/news/censors-force-fallout-3-changes) that the changes made to the game would be made across all territories, so as to not create confusion, but what changes, specifically? I shot a note to Pete Hines, VP of Marketing and PR at Bethesda, to find out just what was changed.
UGO: Just wanted to confirm the annoucement that all versions of Fallout 3 would be indentical, with the changes being made to the names of specific drugs (changing them from real-world names to in-universe names). Can you be more specific? If I recall, all of the drugs in the builds we’ve played were made-up names like Buffout and Mentats.
Pete Hines: The chems in the original Fallout used fictional names...Buffout, Jet, Rad-X, etc. Those all appear in Fallout 3 in exactly the same way as before.
We had added a new chem to Fallout 3 and had given it a real-world name, Morphine. Questions were raised about the use of that real-world drug, not only in Australia, but other territories as well. We decided there was no reason it needed to be named that and it should be a fictional name like the other chems, so we changed it to “Med-X”.
That’s the change we made in response to those concerns, nothing else.
So there you have it. Lots of craziness for something pretty innocuous. See, it always helps to ask!


Yup, that's it:shrug:

[Charlie]

As long as I get my Nuka~Cola.

[Goodfellow]

We are talking about the country that has banned Leisure Suit Larry. LEISURE SUIT LARRY!!! They have no sense of humor or knowledge that a video game IS A GAME.

[Jtaylor1]

This is too bad. They've already censored the thing by taking out killable children.

I just don't understand why some countries take such a hardline against video games. Fallout 3 is definitely aimed at adults, in fact I can't see it having much kid appeal at all, and should be sold as such. It's too bad that consenting Aussie adults have to be told by the state that they can't play a game because the government doesn't like what's portrayed within.

Hurting innocent children in video games is highly inappropriate.

[Goodfellow]

Hurting innocent children in video games is highly inappropriate.

Why? Why shoudl kids not be allowed to be killed in games just becuase they are kids? It is still an unrealistic setting. People need to get over things like this. If you want a realistic game with a realistic setting, you are going to have to start putting kids getting killed in it.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Hurting innocent children in video games is highly inappropriate.

No it's not. In Fallout, at least, it's hilarious. Because, and I shouldn't have to explain this but I guess I do, it isn't real and it isn't meant to be taken seriously.

There were killable children in the original US release of Fallout and Fallout II IIRC, although the little bastards could run pretty fast so they were hard to hit and shooting them would make the whole town come after you. I think you could use the trick where you plant a bomb on them with your pickpocketing skill, though.

Some of them would pickpocket you first, although melting one to a charred husk with a plasma rifle is a little more than proportional response, I guess.

In Fallout 2 you can actually get a child killer label as one of your karma labels.