Update: Saints Row IV Ditches Drugs To Gain Aussie Blessing

[Evil Smurf]

It's cool, I have. UK steam key ;D

 

[The Lunatic]

The third was so few in missions, it seems like removing a loyalty mission from the forth will be quite a considerable thing.

 

[Nurb]

Seeing as Germany made C&C and TF2 turn everyone into cyborgs that leak oil instead of blood, I doubt they'd make it a flat censorship issue with everyone.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Solution: import a version of the game from a country with a less retarded censor-boner...hmmm I can't in good conscience argue that the US or UK governments are less idiotic than the government that is found in Australia but at least, I guess, the US government didn't feel the need to mandate censorship of this particular game. So yeah, import the US version.

It'll register through Steam, which means it wont matter where you import it from.

 

[1Life0Continues]

I...I kinda hope they do remove it for everyone.

Now, bear with me, before...put the pitchfork down, please...before you eviscerate me. I'm Australian.

By removing this content, and stating outright why they did it, Deep Silver will put the global gamer focus on Australia and its broken rating system. By broken, I mean, it clearly isn't in line with the similar systems around the world in terms of what it allows.

A global furor over the content being cut would hopefully force the Australian Govt to review it's archaic ideas on what adults are allowed to have, and hopefully bow to putting less draconian regulations in place to align with the ratings systems around the globe.

The Australian people obviously can't do anything about it, we tried and look what we got. A half baked solution. So if it takes the whole world turning on us and glaring to get the damn rules changed, I say bring it on.

I could just be reaching, but something has to be done, and if Deep Silver have the guts to do this, I for one would applaud them.

I doubt they will listen to angry foreigners who don't vote.

Its better to just not sell in Australia anymore until they fix the ratings system. That way people WILL get angry when they are cut off from all games and put huge pressure on government. After all, these are all citizens with voting power.

It wouldn?t matter since the ratings board isn?t a government body and its members aren?t voted in.
And why is our system broken exactly, because we say the some stupid peace of shit game needs to clean up it?s act before it can be sold here? That?s a good thing it shows that we actually have standards.

The board operates within the standards mandated by FEDERAL law. So changing the application of FEDERAL laws WILL impact the board and how it rates games.

And you're totally okay with censorship of this kind? Especially for adults? I'm sorry, but I'm not continuing this conversation with you.

To address the other point:

Voting to change things seems like a good idea, except neither side has put the ratings on their policy agendas and likely never will so long as Family First has their purse-strings. Hence, having the global community turn an eye on it would overwhelmingly force adjustment of policy. Until then, the Australian people are basically powerless, since not voting is illegal, and without a policy addressing the issue, there's no point.

 

[Doom972]

Sounds like it was cut for everyone. Why not just cut it for them.

The rest of us understand it's a game enough that we could still have it. :/

The big question: will the mission still be in the non-AU release?

Is the edited version worldwide, or just for Oz?

Gaming has always been fucked up here, but i don't think we have ever managed to ruin it for everyone before.

I hope it remains uncut for the rest of the world.

I dont need some retards in the aussie government deciding what I can and cant handle half way around the world.

I don't see why it'd be cut for the rest of the world, seeing as (as far as I'm aware), Australia is the only one that has a problem with it. I mean, the Dildo Bat was essentially removed from the Japanese version of Saints Row the Third, but that didn't mean the rest of the world lost it as well.

Your logic is correct, but it had happened before - In Fallout 3 they changed Morphine to Med-X because of the Autralian classification board, and the change was made to all English versions. This isn't a problem in this case, but it does prove that a game could be changed for everyone just because they didn't approve of it.

 

[Roander]

I...I kinda hope they do remove it for everyone.

Now, bear with me, before...put the pitchfork down, please...before you eviscerate me. I'm Australian.

By removing this content, and stating outright why they did it, Deep Silver will put the global gamer focus on Australia and its broken rating system. By broken, I mean, it clearly isn't in line with the similar systems around the world in terms of what it allows.

A global furor over the content being cut would hopefully force the Australian Govt to review it's archaic ideas on what adults are allowed to have, and hopefully bow to putting less draconian regulations in place to align with the ratings systems around the globe.

The Australian people obviously can't do anything about it, we tried and look what we got. A half baked solution. So if it takes the whole world turning on us and glaring to get the damn rules changed, I say bring it on.

I could just be reaching, but something has to be done, and if Deep Silver have the guts to do this, I for one would applaud them.

You live in Australia. You (hopefully) vote. There's at least a chance the government there will listen to you if you complain effectively enough. They don't owe the rest of us anything and don't have any reason to change just because we complain about them - not that that keeps a lot of us from complaining anyway. Getting the 18+ rating created was a good start. Now you just need to push your benevolent overlords to actually apply it in a way that makes sense. In my own opinion the best way to get people in Australia to push for change in Australia would be for Volition, and any other company dealing with this kind of mess, to refuse to make these changes and not release the game in Australia at all.

 

[SoulSalmon]

You live in Australia. You (hopefully) vote. There's at least a chance the government there will listen to you if you complain effectively enough.

There's no hopefully about it, voting is mandatory here.
Also I don't think the government decides what the classification board does or who's in it (And who's in it? mostly women over 40 [http://www.classification.gov.au/About/BoardMembers/Pages/Classification-Board-Members.aspx])

The whole "RC" thing is going to hit hard for everyone one day, a game developed by an Australian company will be illegal to export if refused classification.

 

[Formica Archonis]

This all reminds me of the time the Comics Code Authority refused to give its imprimatur to a government-commissioned comic on the dangers of drugs because it... depicted drugs and drug use [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority#Updating_the_Code].

I suppose we should be grateful that Australia appears to have at least skipped the "No Negroes as heroes!" era of puritanical censorship.

 

[Vausch]

Does the Australian government think that adults can't distinguish between fantasy and reality?

If they're doing this to protect kids, all they're really doing is assuming every single person is a bad parent.

 

[RicoADF]

It's cool, I have. UK steam key ;D

I've never tried that, does it work?
If so I think I'll need to cancel my australian steam pre-order ;-)

 

[Evil Smurf]

It's cool, I have. UK steam key ;D

I've never tried that, does it work?
If so I think I'll need to cancel my australian steam pre-order ;-)

It works for L4D2.

 

[RicoADF]

It's cool, I have. UK steam key ;D

I've never tried that, does it work?
If so I think I'll need to cancel my australian steam pre-order ;-)

It works for L4D2.

I know it worked when my friend sent me L4D2 via gift, nice to know you can activate keys that way too, thanks.

 

[Evil Smurf]

It's cool, I have. UK steam key ;D

I've never tried that, does it work?
If so I think I'll need to cancel my australian steam pre-order ;-)

It works for L4D2.

I know it worked when my friend sent me L4D2 via gift, nice to know you can activate keys that way too, thanks.

No problem, maybe we can Co-op.