That's right - Fallout 3, sequel to the much-acclaimed Fallout 1 and 2, and highly-anticipated debut game of the series under Bethesda, is banned for sale in Australia.
Why, you may ask? Because of Australia's lack of any rating higher than
MA 15+. For years, people have petitioned for an
18+ rating, and been denied over and over again. It's happened so often that the review board has reclassified any requests on the matter from 'correspondence' to 'complaints'.
I think those who say this is a reason to not control games or to get rid of ratings or whatever else are deluding themselves. It's not that there needs to be no control, it's that there needs to be better control, and more understanding.
Having your rating system only go up to 15+ is rather asinine, given that the majority of gamers are older than that. Banning their games is only going to piss off a lot of future or current voters.
What needs to be done is a more cohesive rating system that takes into account all the mature gamers who understand the difference between a video game and real life (not to say younger gamers don't, but adults get the adult privileges), and have a rating for them.
In America, we have the ESRB, which rates game through to 18+ (the AO rating). While that rating is almost never given to final release game as it's basically a death knell, it at least exists.
That is the next problem, the lack of understanding. We need to get companies and stores to sell games that are rated AO so that game makers can make their more realistic, mature games and not be restricted.
Plenty of movies come out that are amazing in their realistic depictions of drug use, violence, and nudity, and we rate them "R" accordingly, and can still call them artworks. Yet a game that does something even half of that can get rated AO and be banned? Or even worse, get an M rating and still be banned from some place like Australia that doesn't have that high a rating?
Ludicrous, and unacceptable. Some people are still living backwards, morally incomprehensible lives, basing everything they do on outdated ways of thinking, and unfortunately for gamers, many of these people run the governments of the world.
You can read more about Australia's lack of 18+ rating here>
IGN: R 18+: An IGN AU PerspectiveArticle on Fallout 3 being banned>
IGN: Fallout 3: Behind the AU Ban
