The publisher claims that the reboot of the fighting series is no more violent then games that have already been approved for sale in Australia.
It can be hard to predict what games will raise the ire of Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification and which won’t, and the upcoming Mortal Kombat game was one of the unlucky ones. But publisher Warner Bros. says that it doesn’t accept the OFLC’s decision, and it isn’t planning on censoring the game either.
In a statement, Warner said that it was appealing the OFLC’s ruling. It said that it had taken another look at Mortal Kombat and felt that it was no worse than other games already available for sale in Australia. It planned to resubmit the game with no changes as it was, saying that it wanted to look into all avenues to get Mortal Kombat in front Australian gamers. Presumably, if this appeal fails, then Warner will eventually look into cutting some content to make the game more palatable to the Australian censors.
This is just another example of Australia’s rather stringent ratings policy for videogames, which currently lacks a mature rating for the medium, making things difficult for publishers, developers, and gamers alike. The issue will eventually come before Australia’s Attorneys-General – although when is anyone’s guess – so with any luck, Australian gamers won’t have to put up with the situation for too much longer.
Mortal Kombat comes out for Xbox 360 and PS3 on April 19th.
Source: IGN
Published: Mar 2, 2011 01:09 pm