Fallout 3 Banned by Hypocritic Bureaucrats

A leaked document from the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification indicates that the reason it has banned Fallout 3 is the game's depiction of drug use.

The Board's report states games that "depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, 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 to the extent that they should not be classified" will not be given a rating. Additionally, it states that, "material that contains drug use and and sexual violence related to incentives and rewards is Refused Classification".

This is the same organisation that rates movies in Australia. Let's see if we can bring bring some Australian movies into the mix:

Candy (2005) starring Heath Ledger. The OFLC says, "Frequent drug use, Strong themes, Strong coarse language, Sexual references". The OFLC rates it: "MA 15+ (Not suitable for people under 15. Under 15s must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian)".

Or how about...

Little Fish (2005) - starring Cate Blanchett, Sam Neil and Hugo Weaving. The OFLC states, " Strong drug references, Drug theme, Strong coarse language". The OFLC rates, "MA 15+ (Not suitable for people under 15. Under 15s must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian)".

The latter is actually about a drug deal!

So, what is it in Fallout 3 that violates those standards? A passage from the report describes the offending feature:



Presumably the Board could live with that on its own, however, given that it allowed Haze classification. Many of Haze's gameplay mechanics, of course, are related to taking Nectar - a drug. The crunch, it would seem, is the following:



Furthermore, the assessor states that, "chems are an essential part of Fallout3, and the player will likely use a variety of them throughout the game."

Also mentioned is the use of morphine to suppress pain and allow the player to keep pushing on. This apparently counts as "Material promoting or encouraging proscribed drug use", which the Board will also refuse classification over. SPOnG, for its part, is not convinced that depicting morphine doing what it does - enabling users to ignore pain - counts as promotion or encouragement.

So, a "small visual representation" of a drug is enough to get the game banned, it would seem. Does that seem massively overly zealous to anyone else? Drug use without said representation, a la Haze, is apparently fine. Throw in a tiny image, however, and you have content that offends "against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults".

The Board explicitly states in its report that "the violence throughout the game could be accommodated at an MA 15+ level of classification."

^{Source: Australian Gamer}