CRIMECRAFT: Another Game Banned in Australia
November 27, 2009
Vogster Entertainment's CRIMECRAFT is the latest title to be banned by the Classification Board. This MMO game was Refused Classification on Thursday.
In the U.S. the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) awarded it a Mature rating meaning that it is suitable for persons seventeen and older. Their rating summary does not mention drug use, and any sexual content seems limited to choosing a skimpy costume for your female avatar. Presuming this is correct then we would speculate that violence was responsible for pushing this out of MA15+ and into RC.
ESRB Rating Summary
Entertainment Software Rating Board
CrimeCraft
Platform: Windows PC
Rating: Mature
Content descriptors: Blood, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
Rating summary:
This is a third-person shooter in which players can select a character and gain
experience points through completion of various missions/quests. Players can
roam around the fictional setting of Sunrise City and engage in several types of
massively multiplayer online (MMO) games: team deathmatch, capture the flag,
robbery, and free-for-all.
Players are able to shoot and kill other characters by using a wide variety of guns (handguns, shotguns, machine guns, rocket launchers) and thrown weapons (grenades, Molotov cocktails, etc.). Small splashes of red blood indicate successful hits, and bloodstains are depicted on the ground under some defeated characters.
Achievements and mission titles sometimes contain profanity (e.g., achievement called "F**king Ridiculous"; missions called "I Ain't Movin' B*tch," and "Poppin' a Cap in Yo A*s"). Players can customize female avatars so that they only wear a bra and thong-style panties or outfits that expose deep cleavage; players can also trigger a brief dance in which an avatar caresses her body.
Will 2009 be a record year?
CRIMECRAFT joins NECROVISION, SEXY POKER, LEFT 4 DEAD 2 and RISEN to become the fifth title of the year to be Refused Classification. Should one more title be rated RC in the coming weeks then that will make 2009 the worst (excluding Police submissions) on record for banned games.
Five titles were banned in 2008, and five in 2004.
December 2, 2009
Update: It was the drugs that did it!
Thanks to Joab at gamearena.com.au for the full Classification Board report which reveals drugs as being behind the RC rating.
November 27, 2009
Refused-Classification.com
