Crime has been banned in Australia. Not the real life version, of course – that would be too difficult, and Australia has targeted video games instead. Hence “Crime Craft” has become the latest victim of Australia’s draconian game censorship laws, the enormous multi player online game having been refused classification by the Australian Classification Board late last week.
Unlike some other recent games (such as “Left 4 Dead 2”, with had to be censored for local release), violence is not the issue so much as drugs, specifically “drug use related to incentives or rewards”, mainly the in-game “boosts” drugs that improve players’ performance. “In the board’s opinion, there is insufficient delineation between the ‘fictional drugs’ available in game and real world prescribed drugs,” the board claims. “Boost parallels the names, chemical elements, administration, treatment and addictive elements of real world prescribed drugs, and when used provide quantifiable benefits to a player’s character.
The game therefore contains drug use related to incentives or rewards and should be refused classification… In addition, the names of boosts mimic the chemicals and colloquial names of prescribed drugs. Examples include K-Dust, Birth, Chimera, Majoun, Betadyne ResistX and Zymek Stim-Ex, as well as the anabonics Raze and Frenzy”. In other words, “Remember kids, drugs are bad, m’kay?” Australian gamers have reacted with predictable disdain to the latest banning, one commenting on GameSpot.com that “We are officially the laughing stock of the entertainment world”. “Crime Craft” joins “Necrovision”, “Sexy Poker” and the original “Left 4 Dead 2” as titles banned in Australia in 2009 alone.
