Banned Games in Australia

The console game Mortal Kombat has been banned in Australia.

The censors said that the game was 'Refused Classification'.

Warner Brothers said:

The highly anticipated video game Mortal Kombat, published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) in Australia, has been refused classification by the Australian Classification Board and will not release in Australia. We are extremely disappointed that Mortal Kombat, one of the world's oldest and most successful video games franchises, will not be available to mature Australian gamers. WBIE would not market mature content where it is not appropriate for the audience. We understand that not all content is for every audience, but there is an audience for mature gaming content and it would make more sense to have the R18+ classification in Australia. As a member of the iGEA, WBIE is reviewing all options available at this time.

Ron Curry, CEO of the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association had this to say:

The granting of another RC to a video game clearly designed and targeted at ADULTS again highlights the shortcomings of the current classification scheme. In particular, the absence of an adult classification.

And indeed the BBFC, with a complete range of age classifications avaialbale, passed the game 18 uncut with the comment: Contains strong bloody violence.

Update: Decapitations, dismemberment and spraying blood

27th February 2011. See article from skynews.com.au

Australia's Government censorship board said that the game contains excessive levels of violence, and is unsuitable for a minor to see or play, specifically citing more than 60 death scenes, with graphic images of decapitations, dismemberment and spraying blood.

Despite the exaggerated conceptual nature of the fatalities and their context within a fighting game set in a fantasy realm, impact is heightened by the use of graphics which are realistically rendered and very detailed.

Warner Brothers is appealing a ban on one of the most anticipated game releases of the year, Mortal Kombat.

Earlier this week it was revealed that the Classification Board had banned Mortal Kombat due to its violent gameplay.

Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment Australia said it had decided to appeal to the Classification Review Board over the Mortal Kombat decision. It refuses to budge and submit a cut version of the game, arguing that wouldn't be Mortal Kombat.

After reviewing both the game play and the Board's original decision WBIE Australia believe the violence in the game is on par with numerous other titles readily available for sale in the Australian market.

As such the company wants to exhaust all options to make the game available to Mortal Kombat fans in this country. An identical version of the game will be submitted for appeal.

Warner Bros. said it was considering hiring Classification Board ex-deputy director Paul Hunt to help in its appeal. Hunt now runs his own consultancy, MLCS Management, and has previously helped overturn the banning of other titles by Australian censors including F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin and Aliens vs Predator.

Update: New Zealand

7th March 2011. See article from gameplanet.co.nz

Mortal Kombat has received a rating of R18: Graphic Violence in New Zealand.

It will be available to New Zealand adult gamers on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on the 21st of April.

Mortal Kombat remains banned in Australia after an unsuccessful appeal against the ban. The appeal board released a statement:

A four-member panel of the Classification Review Board has by majority decision determined that the computer game Mortal Kombat is classified RC (Refused Classification).

In the Review Board's opinion, Mortal Kombat could not be accommodated within the MA15+ classification as the level of violence in the game has an impact which is higher than strong. As MA15+ is the highest classification category available to computer games under the Australian Classification Scheme, the Classification Review Board must refuse classification to Mortal Kombat.

Computer games classified RC cannot be sold, hired, advertised or demonstrated in Australia.

Namco Bandai has confirmed to Kotaku that The Witcher 2 has been cut for Australian release under an MA15+ rating.

According to Namco Bandai:

In the original version your character Geralt was given the choice of accepting sex as a reward for successfully completing this particular side quest. The Australian Classification Board originally refused classification as they deemed the inclusion of sex as a reward as not suitable for an MA15+ classification.

The change is only minor, in that the character choice is now made automatically for him. The character and the side quest are still in the game but presented in a slightly different context. No other cuts have been made and this change has no impact on gameplay, storyline or character development.

A noted online distributor of popular video games such as The Witcher series has removed restrictions from its platform which limits some features to customers based on what country their internet address is from, potentially allowing Australians to clandestinely escape local video game censorship rules.

The feature, known as geo-IP or geo-location, is used by many online video game delivery platforms to restrict what forms of content customers in different countries can consume, and how much they will pay for it.

For example, it is common for Australian video game players to complain that the price of video games bought online can be different locally than in the United States with the price being set by determining a customer's IP address, despite the same content being delivered.

In a statement on its site published this week, game distributor Good Old Games said it had come to the conclusion that there were a number of issues with using a customer's IP address to determine what offer they were being presented with.

A good number of users can find themselves negatively impacted by a policy of using geo IP to set their region, the company said. For example, customers may be travelling when they want to purchase or download a game from GOG.com. In this case, automatic IP address capture might change the price or the content of the game they're ordering (such as the default language of the installer).

Furthermore, the company said, geo-IP data collection didn't always function correctly --- and could report an incorrect region for users. And lastly, it didn't want to violate its users' privacy by collecting data it didn't need to --- so had taken the decision to trust customers to voluntarily tell it their correct region when making a purchase.

As the Australian Government prepares legislation to introduce a games classification for adults, Sega's zombie shooting game The House of the Dead: Overkill -- Extended Cut has been banned.

Sega Australia says it is determined to appeal the decision immediately and hope to have the classification overturned without making any changes or amends to the final game.

Sega Australia Managing Director Darren Macbeth said:

There are far worse titles currently available in the marketplace which involve more than shooting down mutants in humorous circumstances.

We will do everything we can to prove that House of the Dead: Overkill is worthy of an MA15+ rating in Australia.

The House of the Dead: Overkill -- Extended Cut had been scheduled for release in Australia on October 27. It is scheduled for release in Europe at about the same time.

Update: Reason for Ban

5th November 2011. Based on article from kotaku.com.au:

It's a particularly strange decision, considering the fact that the original Wii version was released as MA15+ without incident, but the Classification Board's issue is with a new Hardcore mode which has been added to the game.

The Hardcore game mode allows players to play in a manner that exceeds strong in impact, claims the report, engaging a headshot-only mode which results in frequent, detailed blood and gore as the zombies and mutants [sic] heads explode into bloody pieces that spread around the environment and onto the screen. The game also contains an Extra mutants mode which increases the amount of mutants the player must kill to proceed, resulting in an increased intensity and frequency of violence. In addition the game contains a baby mutant that jumps onto the screen and explodes into bloody chunks when killed.

Update: BBFC 18 uncut

See article from bbfc.co.uk

The BBFC have just passed The House of the Dead: Overkill -- Extended Cut 18 uncut. The BBFC added the comment:

Contains frequent strong bloody violence, gore and language

The BBFC also noted that the game contains 61:44s of cut scenes (insert video material).

House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut has been re-classified MA15+ on appeal.

A three member panel of the Classification Review Board has by unanimous decision determined that the computer game should be classified MA 15+ with the consumer advice strong horror violence, strong coarse language.

The decision overturns the ban imposed by the Film Classification Board. The Review Board convened in response to an application from Sega Australia Pty Ltd, to review the decision made by the Classification Board on 23 August 2011 for the computer game House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut. The Board classified the computer game RC (Refused Classification).

For perspective, the game was passed 18 uncut by the UK censors of the BBFC.

Update: Review Board Reasoning

5th November 2011. See article from refused-classification.com

The review board outlined their decision as follows:

It is the view of the Review Board that the violence in this computer game, occurring in a familiar fighting game format, is stylised, unrealistic and graphically relatively unsophisticated compared to other computer games available in the Australian market. Given the fantasy theme of zombie horror and the characteristics of that genre, the violence, although frequent, is justified by context. The zombies and mutants themselves and most of the combat action involving them is lacking in realistic detail and occurs at a distance rather than in close up. The zombies and mutants are visually homogeneous and with a couple of exceptions that are individually grotesque, are not humanised. Victims and blood and gore disappear within seconds from the game. The settings in Bayou City are stylised and not realistic. It is therefore the opinion of the Review Board that the cumulative impact of the violence in the game is no higher than strong and as noted above, is justified by the fantasy zombie horror, rail shooter context.

In addition, the game contains frequent strong, coarse language which is not aggressive and is used conversationally. The cumulative impact of this language is no higher than strong.

As the impact of both the violence and the language in House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut is strong, the game is not suitable for persons under the age of 15.

The Australian Classification Board has banned the upcoming computer game Syndicate. No doubt it would have qualified for an 18 rating, but as there isn't one then the game was banned.

The Australian censors justified their decision as follows:

In the Board's view this game warrants an 'RC' classification in accordance with rule 1(d):

Computer games that: are unsuitable for a minor to see or play will be Refused Classification.

The game contains violence that is high in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons aged under 18 years to play.

The game is set in a futuristic dystopia where people have computer chips in their heads that allow them to interact with the "dataverse", It is a first person shooter with realistically rendered graphics. A player controls Kilo, an agent of one of the "Syndicates" (powerful corporations), as he moves through levels completing objectives such as rescuing Eurocorp employees and extracting chips from people's heads.

In order to complete the missions, a player has to engage in intense combat with swarms of enemy combatants who are clad in light armour. A variety of weapons is available and these often cause decapitation, dismemberment and gibbing during frenetic gunfights. For example, an intense sequence of violence commences when a player collects a "G290 minigun", which operates much like a Gatling gun. A player moves through a building rapidly firing at enemy combatants. Combatants take locational damage and can be explicitly dismembered, decapitated or bisected by the force of the gunfire. The depictions are accompanied by copious bloodspray and injuries are shown realistically and with detail, Flesh and bone are often exposed while arterial sprays of blood continue to spurt from wounds at regular intervals.

Similar injuries can be caused by many other weapons, including shotguns, high-calibre revolvers, sniper rifles, assault rifles, rocket launchers, laser guns and grenades.

The game also allows a player to repeatedly damage enemy combatants' corpses. This is shown in realistic depictions. For example, it is possible for a player to decapitate a corpse with a headshot before individually blowing off each of its limbs. Depending on the weapon used, it is also possible to bisect a corpse, with realistic ragdoll effects noted. The depictions are again accompanied by arterial sprays of blood and detailed injuries that include protruding bone.

Throughout the game, a player consistently encounters unarmed civilians and has the choice of whether to target them or riot. Civilians can be shot, accompanied by copious bloodspray, but it is not possible to decapitate or dismember them, whether they are alive or dead. Their corpses can still be targeted, resulting in bloodspray only. In single player mode, the game treats civilian deaths neutrally, but it is noted that in cooperative gameplay, points are awarded for civilian casualties.

In the opinion of the Board, the game contains intense sequences of violence which include detailed depictions of decapitation and dismemberment that are high in playing impact. The game also contains the ability to inflict repeated and realistic post mortem damage which exceeds strong in playing impact.

It is therefore unsuitable for a minor to see or play and is therefore Refused Classification.

Update: Meanwhile at the BBFC

24th December 2011.See article from bbfc.co.uk

The BBFC has passed Syndicate 18 uncut with the consumer advice: Contains strong bloody violence.

The game includes 1 hour of video or cut scenes.

The Sony PlayStation Vita version of the Warner Brothers classic fighting game reboot Mortal Kombat has been banned by the Censorship Board.

The game was submitted to the misleadingly named Classification Board of Australia by Warner Brothers despite previous console versions of the game being similarly banned for explicit violence. The publisher felt that the impact of the violence in the Vita version of Mortal Kombat would be lessened by the portable console's smaller screen size.

Obviously, the censors didn't agree.

Warner Bros. clarified that the version submitted was the same, unedited version of Mortal Kombat for the Vita that will be released globally, except Australia, on April 19.