WB To Appeal Australia's Effective Ban on Mortal Kombat 129
dotarray writes "Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have confirmed that they are appealing the Australian Classification Board's decision to effectively ban the reboot of Mortal Kombat in that country. The publisher has also confirmed that there is no intention to censor or modify the game – because then it 'wouldn't be Mortal Kombat.'"
Re:Not released in australia.. (Score:5, Informative)
No, they cannot. As a German I can tell you that stores like Direct2Drive, Gamersgate, Impulse, Steam, etc. ALL enforce region restrictions. Games that are censored/banned here generally aren't being sold to Germans, even if the seller is a US (or some other country) company. It's fairly common to see restrictions like "this game is not available in your country" or even "this game is available worldwide except Korea, Germany and Australia".
Re:ABACABB? (Score:4, Informative)
This (importing it from retailers overseas) is exactly what every Aussie already does with every other RC game. It's a big reason why the lack of an R18 rating is so utterly stupid and pointless. Hell, I buy most of my games from overseas anyway because they are cheaper than buying them locally, even including shipping.
And amusingly enough, your other suggestion has happened in the past! The original Duke Nukem 3D was initially refused classification in Australia. They then released a modified version for Australia, without the blood and girls, which got through fine. They then published a small and easy to apply patch on the web that put the removed content back in, which 99.9% of people downloaded. All perfectly legal! (RC stuff itself isn't illegal to own in most Australian States - it just can't be sold on retail shelves ... so selling a modified copy and publishing a free patch on the web is fine) /facepalm
Lack of R18 rating has the following effects:
- Doesn't stop anyone playing the game, since they just import it anyway;
- Means local retailers miss out on revenue, with the gamers' dollars going to overseas retailers instead;
- Often sees games that are rated R in every other country getting squeezed in under the MA15 rating, meaning that 15-17 year olds are being exposed to R content anyway (negating the effect of the law in the first place!);
- Irritates the classification board no end: they know perfectly well how retarded the system is and themselves are big proponents of introducing an R rating for games ... but in the meantime they can only work with the ratings that exist; and
- Is generally just a stupid, needlessly inconsistent law (considering that movies, books and other media can be given R18 or X18 ratings ... games are the only things treated differently)
BTW, for console games (which the new MK is) you generally have to import from an NZ or European retailer due to the region coding on the discs and the PAL/NTSC issue. For PC games, US retailers are usually the way to go (cheapest).