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Australian Ban On Fallout 3 – Why?

Posted by timothy on from the morphine's-a-stimulant-in-upside-down-land dept.

LSU_ADT_Geek writes "What could possibly be so controversial in upcoming E3 2008 headliner Fallout 3 that the Australian government would impose a dreaded 'RC' rating on Bethesda's upcoming tertiary post-apocalyptic RPG? No one knows for sure, but speculation is that the optional use of drugs in the game — specifically the option to employ morphine as a stimulant — may underlie the Aussie classification board blacklisting."

1 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Simple really, Aussie law is limited. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Simple. Australian law only allows for games to be rated MA15+ (suitable for fifteen year olds and higher) at the strongest. In fact, this is the only restricted rating available to games in Australia; as all others are merely guidelines. This game was deemed unsuitable for fifteen year olds and therefore had to be unrated.

    NZ law allows video games to have the same ratings as movies, so the game could take an R16 or R18 rating here. It's not uncommon for us to see video games for sale that have "banned in Australia" as an advertising gimmick (and usually carrying an R16 or R18 rating). Also, the increased range allows the NZ cheif censor to have more descretion in dealing with things like this. See here.

    US law doesn't have any ratings at all (merely industry guidelines.)