Australia's classification board


Dead Or Alive: Dimensions Has Been Reclassified


dead_or_alive_dimensions_screen_1.jpg
I find it amazing that a game can be pulled purely due to the classification that they impose on it. If a kid wanted an "adult" game then they would just have their parents buy it for them, I don't think anybody takes game ratings seriously. It's also very telling that the board needed 'new evidence' to have them revoke their initial rating, shouldn't someone at the board be playing these games before passing judgement? Does anybody play these games before they are rated?


I imagine the meeting went like this:


Board: It says here that this game is about mercilessly pummelling your opponent into unconsciousness via one on one gladiatorial combat, involving bone shattering martial arts manoeuvres and, in some cases, edged weapons. We the board grant this a C for child friendly, ages 3 and up... what's that?... there's covered human girl breasts in it?! the kind that are whapped into our childrens faces on every tv show and music video currently available to mankind?! In that case we revoke our previous rating and grant a P for pedo, 26 ages and up, we simply cannot have female anatomy bouncing around spoiling our child friendly violence.


The whole thing is a farce.
How your hypothetical meeting goes isn't that far from the truth.


Aussie Classification Board = Useless
 
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just get it on PC bro.
steam versions bought outside aus and gifted got censored after about an hour of it being available


though it's just a variable in the engine, possible to turn on and off at will if you don't mind a little cracking (not sure if you can play uncensored multiplayer or not)


what's worse is if you play multiplayer with someone from australia, you don't get the riot-police zombies, as they can't have them
 
steam versions bought outside aus and gifted got censored after about an hour of it being available
Didn't Steam put out a "hey, we're going to stop geoiping purchases and trust that you guys know what you can and can't download. You wouldn't betray our trust, would you? ;) " email a little while ago?


Or was that GoG?
 
Didn't Steam put out a "hey, we're going to stop geoiping purchases and trust that you guys know what you can and can't download. You wouldn't betray our trust, would you? ;) " email a little while ago?


Or was that GoG?

might have, i only use steam for gaming, don't pay attention to what gabe says between pies :D


but they did apply the censoring to imported copies of l4d2, some lucky people had about 5 hours of uncensored gameplay before it kicked in though
 
It's also very telling that the board needed 'new evidence' to have them revoke their initial rating, shouldn't someone at the board be playing these games before passing judgement? Does anybody play these games before they are rated?
No, they don't. That's pretty much how all of the game ratings boards - which, remember, are voluntary, and not legally-binding like film/video ratings are - of the world work. Basically, the developers are trusted to submit video of the most extreme content the software contains, and the rating is then passed based on that and some descriptive text about the game (this is just a basic summing-up :p ).


As we've seen over time, this doesn't always work out too well - ranging from the worldwide issue with Rockstar a few years back, to bizarre cases like Nintendogs having to have a warning descriptor for "Comic Mischief" in the US, to the likes of 42 All-Time Classics (a Nintendo DS game featuring classic board and card games of various sorts) having a 12 rating in the UK (most likely because one of those 42 games is poker) which is the same rating as the rather creepy Gregory Horror Show (a game with an ostensibly somewhat "cute" exterior, which is in reality actually somewhat scary, like the animation that it is based on - it's about a seemingly innocuous hotel where the guests are tricked into staying in purgatory and having their minds messed with).


In the UK, we were almost lucky enough to get the BBFC ratings standardised for video games a few years ago (which being universally-recognised and having actual legal backing, unlike the PEGI ratings, would have been a good thing), and they would have replaced the useless, toothless, developer-favouring (which has in the past been a problem) PEGI ratings. However, the previous political party that was in power proclaimed that PEGI was good enough, unfortunately, which leaves us with those useless, confusing ratings and childish (and sometimes biased) content-descriptor icons, with the BBFC only rating games with extreme (usually violent, which some people mistake for "mature") content.
 
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Nice write up, Jourdy. Sex and violent games aren't for everyone and that's why you have a choice of whether or not to play it.


Also, lol @ Barbie Super Sports
 
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