New Aliens Vs. Predator Game Doesn't Make It Past AU Ratings Board

An anonymous reader writes "Australia refused to give Rebellion's new Aliens Vs. Predator game a rating, effectively banning it in the country. Rebellion says it won't be submitting an edited version for another round of classifications, however. (As Valve did with Left 4 Dead 2.) They said, 'We will not be releasing a sanitized or cut down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices.'"

Comments

Good to see game developers put their foot down

[He Who Has No Name]

Refusal to put up with bullshit like Australia and Germany's ratings boards is the only way to bring them down. Tolerance for censorship only breeds familiarity and further tolerance.

Re:Good to see game developers put their foot down

[mjwx]

First off, this was hardly a surprise.

Refusal to put up with bullshit like Australia and Germany's ratings boards is the only way to bring them down. Tolerance for censorship only breeds familiarity and further tolerance.

Unfortunately the publishers boycotting nations will do nothing. It's the citizens that need to act. That being said, I agree with the publishers stance.

In case you don't know, the R18+ rating for video games in Australia is being held up by 1 man, South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson. There are already several campaigns underway to remove Mr Atkinson from his seat of Croydon. Video games are the only media in Australia that do not use the R18+ rating so the highest rating a game can get is M15 which is why L4D and AVP were rejected (extreme graphic violence), if they had of been books or movies they would have got the R18 rating and been released under our classification guidelines, because there is M15 is the highest rating our classification board can give to a video game they have no choice but to follow their mandate and give an RC rating to the game. It's the law that must be changed, that means changing Atkinson.

Our Parallel import laws are another thing, this way we can get around these stupid RC classifications as we can order games from the US, UK or Asia (Hong Kong being quite popular) so for PC gamers this isn't so much of an issue, for console gamers you still have to contend with the region locks.

Re:Good to see game developers put their foot down

[Rennt]

Armed rebellion IS a legitimate choice

Bullshit. The best one man can do to "rebel" is to assassinate an elected leader. Thus derailing the whole democratic process. If you could convince a group of men to resist they become terrorists. If you could convince a whole county or state to resist THEN you might have a legitimate contention, but the fact of the matter is the idea of armed rebellion is quaint and irrelevant today.

But all that aside, do you REALLY believe violence is an appropriate response to the banning of a video game? And what about when you realize the banning is largely symbolic because the game can easily be ordered online? Put down your guns and gain some perspective you psycho!