Denied.

Poor Australian gamers. Not only do you often get neutered versions of M-rated games, but sometimes they don't even get to come out at all. You guys should really do something about that, because the archaic rating system has struck again against a poor WiiWare game.

This time, Gameloft's port of cell phone game Sexy Poker has been given the boot. Why? Boobies, of course!

The Classification Board explained the ban as such:

In the Board’s view Sexy Poker offers depictions of nudity as an incentive or reward to interactive game play. In the Board’s view, the general rule in the Guidelines for the Classification of Films and Computer Games prohibiting depictions of nudity as an incentive or reward, applies to the game play described above, as the player is shown increasingly detailed amounts of nudity following successful game-play

In the view of the Board, the impact of the game exceeds strong as except in material restricted to adults, nudity and sexual activity must not be related to incentives or rewards. As such the game cannot be accommodated in a MA15+ classification.

Despite the existence of an R18+ rating for movies in Australia, the max game classification only reaches MA15+, (even though the average Aussie gamer is 28 years old) which leads to games down under seeing cuts or downright bans more often. Other games to fall victim to Aussie regulations include Fallout 3 for its drug references, Dark Sector for violence and Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure for, uh, promoting graffiti.

Gotta keep those streets of Melbourne clean, y'all.

[source gamepolitics.com]