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Left 4 Dead 2 Approved In Australia After Edits
Last month we discussed news that Valve's upcoming shooter Left 4 Dead 2 had been denied classification in Australia, which meant the game could not be legally sold there. Now, after a series of edits which removed "considerable amounts of gore from gameplay," Australia's classification board has given the game an MA15+ rating. Their new report (PDF) says, "No wound detail is shown and the implicitly dead bodies and blood splatter disappear as they touch the ground. ... The board notes that the game no longer contains depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment." The unmodified version of the game may still be approved, pending a review that concludes on October 22nd.
Judge: "Please explain to me just what the defendant was thinking when he shot the victim in the head?"
Lawyer: "Well, your Honor, as avid player of computer games he was thoroughly conditioned, that this action would have little to no consequence to the other party. In fact, my client was completely shocked at the amount of blood produced by the unfortunate victim as he had never seen something like that in the very real depictions of violence in his computer games. He also believed, and this may strike us as somewhat strange but was his reality at that moment, that the victim would quickly recover from any damages even if they had been caused by my client. That the unfortunate Mr. Smith didn't 'respawn', as my client had experienced thousands of times before, came as a true surprise to him. We therefore believe, while his the results of his actions are very regrettable he bears no guilt as he merely played according to the rules of his previous conditioning, which suggested no such dramatic outcome! Thank you."
Disclaimer: I am a Christian and an Australian. Christian politicians are pushing some stupid things in this country, such as the flawed Internet censorship proposal. However this ratings decision has not been influenced (AFAIK) by the government, Christian influence or not. The link in which you refer to the iiNet copyright case seems to be influenced by corporations, not Christians.