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Leisure Suit Larry Banned
An anonymous reader writes "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude
has been refused classification and banned by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) due to its sexual content.
Being produced by Sierra, Larry's exploits are more cheeky than they could ever be offensive, so is this really justified? Oh well, off to bit torrent I go..."
If you really want to experience this game in it's full glory, you can rip it to you hard drive after you buy it and then apply a patch to it that you can download online. It unlocks all these things like nudity and other stuff that isn't normally available. This isn't like the nude hack for DOA replacing textures, this is actually unlocking portions of the game that I guess they had to lock for distribution in various markets.
It's a very hilarious game.
Chris
why would they ban this game?
because the Australian Game rating system only goes up to 15
so *all* games that would be classified 18 in other parts of the world are automatically banned for sale in Australia
American Pie the original was classified 15 but, according to this bbc report American Pie 2 was classified R which means that if it was an Autralian Computer Game, it too would be banned for sale.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
What? Movie producers never want a movie to be "barely R" - Look how few R-rated films are on the box office charts. http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
Movie producers are usually cutting things out to get an lower rating (either R->PG13 or NC-17->R) to broaden the potential audience.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Yes it is illegal to sell, import, hire or own the game now that it has been refused classification. For god sake, why cant they just introduce an R Rating! There are so many MA15+ games that SHOULD be R rated, but they arent bad enough to ban, so they just make them MA15+ instead... i mean how daft is that! For those who've been following this. Steve Bracks, the Victorian Premier is talking about introducing R rated games legislation for Victoria. (it'll never happen) but at least someone is doing something.
I refuse to have a sig... dammit!
Sheesh, what is up with Australia?
It is called a "Conservative Government". The ratings system for games is outdated, based on the assumption that games are for kids (hence the highest classification is 15+), but there is no way that a Conservative Government would fix this, because they would be worried about newspaper headlines like "Government allows kids to play porno games". They have also done everything they can to stack the Office of Film and Literature Classification (which also rates games) with conservative cronies.
The Government has also realized that since computer games and the Internet are seen as "scary new-fangled technology" by many older and more technophobic Australians, that they can use them as a ploy to gain support. So, they are constantly announcing plans to "keep the kids safe from the evils of the Internet and computer games". This is definately a vote-winner, because given that Australia's population is skewed towards the older demographic, there will be a lot more people pleased by this policy than upset. Censorship is also an effective bargaining chip when trying to get ultra-conservtive independent politicians to help pass legislation.
The contrast comes in TV and radio. Any attempts to censor them would be met by outrage, because they are not a niche market like computer games. So, while the Government is trying to save us all from being morally corrupted by computers, prime-time TV and radio regularly feature profanity. Australia's TV censorship is self-regulated by the industry, so you will regularly hear "fuck" and "shit" on prime-time free-to-air TV chat shows, and all day on certain radio stations. Music is played uncensored on the Government-funded Triple J youth radio network, and radio hosts will regularly swear their heads off and frankly discuss sexual matters. The partly Government-funded SBS free-to-air TV network regularly features shows that could only be described as "European soft-core porn".
So, it is not that we are a country of prudes or anything like that, it is simply the case that computer games and the Internet have gained in popularity, and hence caught the eyes of regulators and lawmakers, while we have been suffering under a conservative Govenment.
Hopefully they will be voted out in tomorrow's elections, but that seems unlikely based on present polling.