Australia censors the new Soldier of Fortune

Soldier of Fortune: Payback, the new episode of the famous videogame saga in the pipeline on PC and – for the first time – on Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles, will have no cartridges to shoot in Australia. The country, used to censorship, does not in fact provide for a classification for products expressly designed for those over 18 years of age, which is why the videogame is the second this year in not receive any judgment from the competent body Office of Film and Literature Classification.

Quite significantly, the ban falls right in the middle of the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) lobbying campaign, aimed at promote the adoption of an R18 + classification for particularly violent software, in the federal elections to be held next month.

According to the IEAA, Australia is the only modern democracy in which there is no classification of video games for adults only, which is why titles that do not fall within the age limit of 15 they are condemned to oblivion of the black market and pirate distribution given the impossibility for retailers to sell software not authorized by the competent commission. Perhaps IEAA does not know that there are other countries, such as Italy, where despite the classification “for adults” there are still titles that are banned …

Soldier of Fortune definitely is a product not suited to the younger audience they say in Australia, considering that Activision’s multi-year First Person Shooter makes extreme realism of killing and “headshots” against enemies one of its historical strengths.

Before “SoF”, in 2007 it was already the turn of Blitz the League to go the same way, banned from the trade for the use of drugs as a reward for the actions of the players. In recent years, the Australian ban has also befallen titles such as Postal 2, The Punisher, Manhunt and the enjoyable Leisure Suit Larry: Magna *** Laude.

It is true that this kind of restrictive measures certainly does not prevent the circulation of the targeted products, rather limiting itself to advertising them and indeed to fund the expansion of the pirate market or the distribution of content on P2P apparently hindered with as much energy as can be found in efforts to entice the more savvy sailors to use it in the absence of better and cheaper alternatives.

Alfonso Maruccia