GTA:SA banned in Australia

July 30, 2005

It finally happened. San Andreas has had it’s classification officially revoked and is now not available for sale within Australia.

This is why I made sure I got in early to get a copy, because our short-sighted, paternalistic, out-dated and downright insulting classification laws are fundamentally fucked. More and more games will be banned from sale in Australia should the ratings system not be updated as more and more publishers realise that the adult audience is the one that is doing the buying.

Naturally, this will lead to increased piracy, among other effects. For example, you now can’t find San Andreas in shops anywhere in the country to legally buy, but BearShare turns up over 1600 hits for the game, and a BitTorrent search engine turns up 83 individual results. Free of charge? Yes. Stolen? Yes. Illegal? Yes. But available?? Yes! Now try Manhunt etc.

Once again, the OFLC needs to take a damn good look at itself as, in my opinion, it is doing little but driving piracy up in Australia.

Posted in General