sigh, here we go again:

-OFLC has pointless double standards that only hurt australian consumers & retailers

-average gamers are adults with the ability to procreate and drink themselves stupid, a game's not going to fuck them up any more than a baby retarded by alcohol abuse

-we have perfectly good laws stopping children getting inappropriate stuff

-atkinson is a knob.

@Gate into Blue: Geez where do you live mate? Might I suggest ebay, the store dungeon_crawl is my particular favourite, most of the games I get from there are $30-40 less than the shelf price in wagga's EB

A question to the Australians: Was this ratings board around when StarCraft introduced the Stim Packs for the Terran Marines? Their use in-game sounds pretty close to the Morphine use in Fallout 3.

This is rediculous, Australia always gets the bad end of the stick.

Why can't Australia get to grip with the fact that we need a higher rating! I agree with Aliasalpha that they have doube standards which only hurt Australian consumers and retailers. This is a fact!

When will we get over this crap.  :(

http://www.amaturegamers.com

Has Australia banned any books?  I mean Sherlock Holmes was huge coke head but i bet you can find Conan Doyle's works in any of thier libraries.

He does not want 18 rated games because he thinks kids will be able to get them. -_-

So, basically they're offended by realism in their fiction?

-Gray17

Pay close attention and this may be what happens if politicians get their way in America. Australia has hit the slippery slope. It started refusing games only with extreme violance such as GTA 4 and Manhunt 2, but now it's refusing games just for drug content. It's only a matter of time before they refuse any game over a T rating, y'know, for the children.

I think we should take this as a sign of what might happen if we retreat and let even one game get banned over here.

Poor Australia. I'd like to wish all the Australian gamers luck in overthrowing this turkey faced asshole Atkinson. Long live freedom, bitches.

-If shit and bricks were candy and tits, we'd all be livin' large. For information on games and psychology, look up: Jonathan Freedman(2002)Block & Crain(2007)Grand Theft Childhood, by Harvard Medical School researchers Larry Kutner and Cheryl Olson

I've pinged the OFLC about this, and I'm rounding up other contacts who might be worth yelling at.

I've asked them to explain how Fallout 3 was refused classification when there are three strong precedents that use drugs in exactly the same manner (Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout: Tactics) and were classified as MA15+.

I Agree with Gate into blue 100%- I don't understand it, fallout 2 had no overtly named drug use but the concept of reward for drug consumption was rampant.  How else could one powergame one's character?  Further, one could pimp ones spouse for money and last time I checked organised prostitution carried a heftier penaly than misdemeanor drug possession in this god awful catholic country.  Fallout 2 did not have the same profile as Fallout 3 and as such was a smaller target for the south australian catholic hate missiles. It is unfortunate Fallout 3 has in effect become a target due to its predecessor's success. (Take it as a tibrute to its greatness). Oh well, now im going to have to download it through steam and physically donate $90 to Bethesda to support their good works. PS this will probably happen again with Bioshock 2.

Does the OFLC have an office anywhere? Especially one in Western Australia, by any chance...? I think I need to go down there and yell at someone.

Before anyone mentions, yes, I know it's not the fault of the OFLC, and that they're merely following the laws that they didn't come up with, but it sure as hell would make me feel better.

The Age Newspaper's gaming blog published an article of mine last week, here: http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenplay/archives//009921.html Ironically, it was written a week before Fallout 3's banning, and was a response to the lower-profile banning of Shellshock 2. Jason Hill ran it in a hurry when it was in danger of suddenly becoming irrelevant. How funny it is that the central idea of my article was that the Classification Board (formerly the OFLC) needed to be more consistent in its decisions, and its lack of consistency meant they were in danger of losing the trust of the Australian people. Whoops! *sigh* Hopefully this will be the big push that was needed to finally get us our restricted 18+ rating, Michael f--king Atkinson be damned.