Interesting.

Crikey, put another shrimp on the barbie.

Well we know who wont be prepared for the zombie apocalypse 

So what people forget when they hear the whole "Australia was a prison island" thing is it started after the British civil war, so those 'crazy prisoners' were Puritans. And clearly they're still running the country.

green blood time!

It'll be like that counterstrike family friendly setting where people just lay down and sleep when you shoot them.

Gotta love the 1950's style conservative mentality that the Australian classification board has.

Oh Australia.  All the zombies will be replaced with robots.

Was the first Left 4 Dead allowed in Australia?  Just curious. 
 
Also, best comment on the Kotaku story:
 
"Yo Australia imma let you finish.  I know you just banned Left4Dead2, but Manhunt 2 was one of the best bands OF ALL TIME!" 
 
as well as: 
 
"Stingray melee weapon confirmed!" 
 
and: 
 
"Australia doesn't like more than one number in a game name."

" Gotta love the 1950's style conservative mentality that the Australian classification board has. "

OH, FFS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
 
Sometimes I really enjoy living in this country. Other times, such as this, I wonder when the decision was made to change from a hard living nation into a fucking nanny state that's wrapped in three hundred layers of cotton wool and daffodils. What the living shit is going on down here? It's all getting too touchy feely for my liking. Even our national sport is being turned into a second-rate pooncefest where you can't even sneeze near someone. Gahhh!
 
*ahem* Sorry about that. I'll set my blood back to 'sulking simmer' instead of 'boiling over out of every hole in my head'.

" Crikey, put another shrimp on the barbie. "

God forbid the children get to play a game with fictional zombie apocalypses. But they are welcome to watch something like Wolf's Creek, right?
 
Hypocrisy at its finest.

Hahaha those are great.
 
As for the game, I doubt it won't get released here in Australia, even if it means that Valve have to edit the content out and then some online modder find a way to put it back in unofficially.
 
It's just that it can really be very frustrating. I'm not some impressionable 8 year old kid who wants to do the things I do in a game in my real life. I'm 24 and have the mental capacity to understand the differences between a game and real life.
Yet there's no R rating for games here in Australia. It all just feels really restricting and simply stupid. I do love living here and I wouldn't leave but there are some things I just completely don't understand about this country sometimes...

Australia needs to sort out its game rating system, as soon as you can R18 games there like you can in NZ then it won't be such an issue for the 'impressionable 15-17yos'.
 
There's always Steam right?

Yeah we have Steam and it's where a lot of people will be purchasing their copy of L4D2 but if it doesn't get approval from the OFLC then it won't be available for us through Steam. If worst comes to worst, I'll import the game and play on NZ servers, shouldn't be too laggy depending on the server.

It's sad that my one reason for never living in Australia is their ridiculous censorship. I mean, America is bad enough about it, what with the existence of AO games being shunned into the most shady corners of the country, but I don't know what I'd do without the legions of great M rated games.
 
Australia, itself, looks beautiful in its own way. A place I'd like to at least visit once.
@FalconCritical said:

" Australia needs to sort out its game rating system, as soon as you can R18 games there like you can in NZ then it won't be such an issue for the 'impressionable 15-17yos'.  There's always Steam right? "

Yes it is.

" Was the first Left 4 Dead allowed in Australia?  Just curious.  Also, best comment on the Kotaku story: "Yo Australia imma let you finish.  I know you just banned Left4Dead2, but Manhunt 2 was one of the best bands OF ALL TIME!"  as well as:  "Stingray melee weapon confirmed!"  and:  "Australia doesn't like more than one number in a game name." "

Hopefully Valve will resubmit soon and the OFLC will allow it if the problem is shown in the right context.

" @Delta_Ass said:

" Crikey, put another shrimp on the barbie. "

"

Confirmed: The zombie apocalypse originates in Australia because they won't be fucking ready. God save us all.

" God forbid the children get to play a game with fictional zombie apocalypses. But they are welcome to watch something like Wolf's Creek, right?  Hypocrisy at its finest. "

" OH, FFS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
 
Sometimes I really enjoy living in this country. Other times, such as this, I wonder when the decision was made to change from a hard living nation into a fucking nanny state that's wrapped in three hundred layers of cotton wool and daffodils. What the living shit is going on down here? It's all getting too touchy feely for my liking. Even our national sport is being turned into a second-rate pooncefest where you can't even sneeze near someone. Gahhh!  *ahem* Sorry about that. I'll set my blood back to 'sulking simmer' instead of 'boiling over out of every hole in my head'. "

" @buzz_clik said:

" OH, FFS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
 
Sometimes I really enjoy living in this country. Other times, such as this, I wonder when the decision was made to change from a hard living nation into a fucking nanny state that's wrapped in three hundred layers of cotton wool and daffodils. What the living shit is going on down here? It's all getting too touchy feely for my liking. Even our national sport is being turned into a second-rate pooncefest where you can't even sneeze near someone. Gahhh!  *ahem* Sorry about that. I'll set my blood back to 'sulking simmer' instead of 'boiling over out of every hole in my head'. "

yeh our country is kind of a shadow of its former glory. "

WHAT THE FUCK?!!! That was possibly the lightest way I could have expressed my rage. I fucking hate the Australian Classification Board and more importantly Michael Atkinson. Thank you Mr Atkinson, you now have another death sentence!

Not surprising in the least.

" God forbid the children get to play a game with fictional zombie apocalypses. But they are welcome to watch something like Wolf's Creek, right?  Hypocrisy at its finest. "

There are times since moving to NZ that I miss Australia.... this isn't one of them.

" Gotta love the 1950's style conservative mentality that the Australian classification board has. "

" @Akeldama said:

" @Delta_Ass said:

" Crikey, put another shrimp on the barbie. "

"

"

That said, censorship on our movies and tv is quite a bit more lax than the ones in the USA. I've noticed quite a few movies which got an R+ rating in America are merely rated MA+ here.
I can understand that games are more likely aimed at the youth of Australia but not everyone who plays games is under 18.
My generation who grew up playing the NES/Famicoms, Master Systems, SNES', Super Mega Drives, PSones, N64s, Saturns etc when the console/gaming industry really started gaining momentum through the late 80s and early 90s are now all in our 20s.
I'd go as far to say that we're the generation who put the most money into the gaming industry here in Australia (making it what it is today locally) and yet we get subjected to the classification ratings which are meant to protect those who can't even purchase games without asking their parents for a credit card.
Now while I'm not at all happy with Michael Atkinson, it's the media who in the long run who make people think these kinds of things are necessary. Whenever an incident involving a child committing a crime is in someway related to a game, the media go nuts over it and it has an effect on idiots who are just as impressionable as their kids, these people take it as the literal truth and then should they come into power continue that way of thinking.
It's all a joke really and hopefully one day it changes, for the time being though all I can do is contact people and state a case on behalf of people with the same ideals. I've emailed Atkinson and I doubt very much he'll even take the time to bother reading it but hopefully one day someone will finally read it and see the sense in it.

that's why i live in Norway,  
also the legal sex age is 16 here YAAY

They produced Neighbours yet ban this?
 
Ah well, the PC crowd is alright buying off Steam and the 360 crowd might be able to import it

Wow what a bunch of uptight fucks, none of them probably play video games and have no clue what effect it has on your mind and body, and to most it's none, it's just a hobby and mindless fun, especially for L4D2. 
I don't understand why they allow extremely violent torture movies there but a zombie survival game is over the top.

" Crikey, put another shrimp on the barbie. "

It's not the Classification Board specifically that stops these games being rated - it's the law makers.
 
More specifically, Australia would have an R-rating but South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson won't budge on the issue and to change any legislation the decision needs to be unanimous.
 
But Left 4 Dead 2 will get released of course, censored, changed whatever and everybody will be happy (or at least content to some extent) for another 12 months before another high profile game gets refused classification and all this starts again.

I put prawns on the BBQ, they're quite nice grilled/BBQ'd.
 
I'm half Filipino and half Chinese lol.
 
Also Steam is region locked, so if it doesn't pass approval, can't even buy it off Steam which is why it underwent the test in the first place lol. If Valve didn't need to get it OFLC approved then they wouldn't have submitted it.
 
Also Ezzo, legal age for sex is also 16 here. We also get to drink when we hit 18 unlike other places where you have to wait till you're 21.

It's still amusing as hell.  
Personally, I love your randomness when it comes to banning games. I didn't know the context to why certain games get banned and why others don't, thanks oldschool. 
 
But my favorite part about this is that the ESRB hasn't even given the "Left 4 Dead 2" a rating yet.  
Yup, it's still at RP (Rating Pending) status. Meaning that it's either still be put through the evaluation, or has yet to be submitted. It's probably like this because, as we all know: The game isn't finished yet.
 
Now to be fair, we all know what the rating for this game is going to be. That being said, it's quite hilarious that a foreign country has already deemed the content unsuitable, to the point that it should be banned. And while that assumption of it's banning is of course debatable, it's even funnier that the Australian classification board has beaten the classification system of the developers country of origin.
 
How the heck did ya manage that? :P
 
Not to say that the ESRB is exempt from criticism, but in America games need to be submitted and evaluated.
 
In Australia it sounds like all it takes is a scared politician with an out-of-context youtube clip.

Fuck you AUS board this is like what happened to GTA IV so then it rolls onto us here in NZ and we got a cut version of GTA IV, not that i would have enjoyed it anymore, but still it isn't fair.

Quite convenient for me to have dual citizen ships, butit's equally disappointing for all the other Australian gamers...
 
The situation is just caused by one attorney refusing a 18 game classification rating when all other forms of media here have one.

It's ridiculous for this Atkinson fellow not to recognize that adults want to play video games aimed for their audience. Really though, this has to be the last straw; boycotting a quality valve game is infuriating, clearly, the representatives are completely disconnected from gaming culture. 
 
It's really sad that they have to tone down the game because of this one man's disconnected requests. Quite a shame too because otherwise, this country has a wonderful quality of life and amazing social benefits.

" Crikey, put another shrimp on the barbie. "

" @Hamz said:

" God forbid the children get to play a game with fictional zombie apocalypses. But they are welcome to watch something like Wolf's Creek, right?  Hypocrisy at its finest. "

Any of your networks allow use of the words fuck or cunt?  "