Blitz: The League Banned Down Under
Midway’s Blitz: The League, for the Xbox 360, has been banned in Australia because of its in-game drug use. The game was originally set for release on February 22, but thanks to an official ruling of Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification, the game will no longer be available in the country.
The OFLC has filed a report desribing how these drugs are used to enchance each member of your team’s performence. Blitz: The League will be refused classification because the game “depicts, expresses or otherwise deals with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults.”
Ivone Bozzi, a marketing manager for Red Ant Enterprises, a local distributor of Blitz: The League, stated:
At this stage we haven’t decided if we are going to go ahead and appeal it. Quite a shame, as we did get some fantastic feedback from retail. It was unfortunately one of those games that are touch-and-go.
Blitz: The League has joined the list of games that have been banned from Austrailia, including Reservoir Dogs, Mark Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, Postal, Postal 2, Narc, BMX XXX, Manhunt, and more.
Read (GameSpot)
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:28 am
Rather than mouth off at the way the board works here in Australia, I’m glad they take their job as seriously as they do. Western morality has become excessively loose in recent times to the point where a horrific game can be made and people argue that it’s a persons choice to play it or not.
In a game such as Blitz, where drug use is accepted as part of sport, this doesn’t achieve anything but influence those who would buy the game to the unfairness of having drug cheats compete in sport. As a sport focused nation it comes as no surprise that the OFLC didn’t take kindly it.
What do others think?
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:31 am
Well that’s the catch with games like that. The ones who are old enough to play it generally are either too old or too busy to.
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:23 am
Too much sensoring… So what if there’s no morality, it’s a game.
Australia is in Iraq today, where’s the morality in that?
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:38 am
“Western morality has become excessively loose” ROFL … your an idiot.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:44 am
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