News - Australia to ban games in a bad way

When Fallout 3 was near release, Australia was the last place on Earth to receive it because the government was having trouble with the game's drug-use content. Although nobody else in the world had a problem with the term "morphine", the Australian government deemed it problematic for their populace. This is proof of backward thinking despite the country having one of the largest base of gamers worldwide, and major stores that feed this market (JB Hi-Fi, EB Games, etc.).

Australia is the only developed country in the world to have no R18+ rating for video games, going only as far as MA15+, and the problem with this is that many violent, or mature-themed games released from now on are going to get the axe, just because Australia doesn't want to implement a higher rating. And they insist the developers change the in-game content to be made milder for Australian palates.

Seriously? No developer is going to waste their time making two versions of the game, one just specifically for Australian release, and I most certainly don't want to play Left 4 Dead 2 with no blood spurting out of dismembered limbs.

It's sad news for gamers in Australia, and I can imagine a lot of people are up in arms about it. You can read more here.

Personally, I think in order for Australia to show it is progressive with the rest of the world, it has got to have a more open view of video games. Especially since academic research on video games is catching on in a big way at universities down under.