So far Dead or Alive: Dimensions hasn't had the best luck: the game was banned in Scandinavia in a child pornography furore, the game has now had its classification revoked in Australia, effectively banning it from sale.
The Australian Classification Board removed the game's PG rating after media reports focusing on the game's photographic Figurine mode, in which you can inspect figurines of characters from various angles. Whereas the Scandinavian release specified some female characters were below 18, the fighters have no age given in the Australian release, making it difficult to understand the sensationalist comparisons to "child pornography" that have resulted in the game's classification being revoked.
The game is now unavailable for sale in Australia until Nintendo resubmits the game for classification. Good job an imported UK copy will work then, eh?
[source au.news.yahoo.com]
Comments 60
Havent you been able to view character models in games from all angles for years. Pretty sure viewing models has been in DOA games before.
Thank goodness for BIG Government to "protect" us from ourselves!
poor navi....please tell me you already bought the game
DOA is the main game that I have been playing on my 3DS. Sorry to hear about this. If Tecmo plans on making a new DOA game they need to make all the characters ages over 17.
slight over reaction by some countrys to this game bet team ninja arent to pleased about bad press at the end of the day its a fighting game and a good one at that
Oh brother. I've always felt the Dead or Alive series relied a little too heavily on sex appeal to garner attention, but even I think this is overreacting. It didn't even seem to be emphasized all that much in the marketing for this installment, from what I could see.
@1: Well, you can view models by playing the game...
Watch some country bans every game in which not all characters are over the legal age.
How is DOA getting banned in so many places? Is it really that bad, or is this just a mass over-reaction?
@7 yeah you can do it via the game but dont games show viewable character models via bio screens or unlockables well i remember something along those lines.
Question is are all future DOA games doomed to get banned and why wasnt previous versions banned.
@dangermousuk78 My guess is the Nintendo connection, combined with 3D and the ability to take photos.
Oh this is so stupid - Australia seem like they need to sort themselves out with regards to game ratings. So much gets banned over there because I don't think they have an adult rating for games at all (someone correct me if I'm wrong).
This also reminds me of another Australian news story where there were talks about making images of women with small breasts illegal no matter what their age.
"Ban this sick filth!"
Really people looked at the figures from different angles?!?!Immature
Australian rating policies suck, man.
Yeesh... I gotta go get me this game before even the US gets scared. x.x
madgear wrote:
Oh my god, seriously? Wow, way to make the female population even more needlessly paranoid about breast size : "My boobs are small, society suggests small boobs are immoral and childish, therefore I need bigger boobs before anyone will be able to like me without feeling like a paedophile."
...Although, that does sound like sensational journalism from a low-brow news rag, like our The Sun. Is this story actually real, or just a journalist's sad fabrication based on half-truths to notch up sales?
Anyway, on the story itself. That's kind of lame for Australia... again. "Good job an imported UK copy will work then." I thought they'd started blocking imports of banned games?
All this banning is so stupid and such an overreaction. At least Austrailians can import it from the UK.
Oh, for goodness sake. Lets hope the stoopid UK tabloids dont get hold of this...
The amusing thing is that the photo mode is actually very tame, and has strategically-targeted limits on where the camera can go (certain... upward angles are expressly disabled if the character is wearing a skirt, but these limits don't exist on other outfits). It's not half as pervy as DoA's volleyball titles.
Can the stores still sell an imported version of this game in Australia like in Scandinavia, or did they ban this from the stores completely?
After all, sex is dirty.
not like shooting people in the head.
Why do I have a feeling all of this uproar is coming because it's on a Nintendo console?
My gosh, when will the stupidity end.
As far as I was aware was that the game has only been declassified because they applied for a PG/12 rating and they said they were not given the full facts so the game isnt banned just unsalable until it gets reclassified which Nintendo has applied for a higher rating, so all this worry is probably for nothing as Nintendo will get it released with a higher rating.
I feel like when people said "it's not even banned for this stupid and incorrect reason in Australia" the Australia government said "how dare someone else be more narrow minded and stupid with their policies then us! We'll show them!"
Hopefully it is Australia pulling it from sale and not Nintendo of Australia, Otherwise NZ is in trouble
Has anyone else heard how the esrb ridiculously censored the NA cover of the game by making Kasumi's leg slightly less exposed than on the other versions by making the flap on her clothes lift a little higher?
@Raptor78 But the classification board is meant to play the game, and assess it, giving it the rating on their assessment, so why are they pulling it from shelves, if they didn't do their job?
It's a shame that it was pulled due to a media outcry. If only they played the game and understood that it is not 'child porn'.
Still, gonna see if I can grab this today somewhere, should be a fun day.
Obviously there's a lot of perverted people out there looking up the figurines skirts, zooming in and taking a good look in 3D. LMAO!
Good grief...
Remember that this is the country that convicted a man under anti-child pornography laws for having a pornographic version of a Simpsons cartoon on his computer back in 2008!
Why should we get a dumbed down version of the game because some people think it's porn?
This is such ! And it's also very strange that this happens just when the franchise hits a Nintendo device for the first time. Only because of the figurine mode? What nonsense! This franchise was always legal. You almost think that they are doing this just to annoy Nintendo! I wonder what happens if more xbox360/PS3 games are coming to Nintendo devices. Even more troubles?
In the North American version, the underage characters also have their age undisclosed within the game. Do they pull this crap with anime too, or only with videogames in Australia?
@29 well yeah, and they did and then they gave it a PG rating. I don't understand how any post classification public rantings can get a game banned if it was tame enough for our classification board to give it PG.
Interestingly this is the same classification board that gave Bill Henson's "nude photos of 13 year old girls" exhibit a PG rating after the police ceased it following complaints. The same photos that, when the proposed gov filter blacklist was leaked, were blocked on various sites. Our decision makers have a bad track record with anything labeled "child porn"
Mad gear: will you stop pulling at stupid story out every time there's an Australian classification piece? It is not true, and it doesn't matter how many times I tell you, you keep peddling it along.
Skywake: the classification board does distinguish between sexualisation and non-sexualised nudity. Not that I'm necessarily defending it (though by the current classification guidelines, this game should never have been a PG game), but I get equally tired of anti-censorshop people coming up with poor comparisons.
@WE It did happen. Look at news reports.
what exactly in the world are they gaining from banning the game anyways?
They're not banning it. They are re-classifying it.
I have to admit I thought PG was a bit strange even before I heard of this figure mode thing. Afterall Dead or alive 4 was M rated in Australia although I'm not sure about the earlier games.
@skogur Nintendo is chickening out because of the absurd current Swedish legal situation: Any depiction of underage people in suggestive situations is illegal in Sweden, and obviously Nintendo wants to keep as far away from that potential trouble as possible.
Come to think of it: it's illegal to draw a picture of someone under 18 having sex and show that picture to a friend. But the age of consent in Sweden is 15. Lolwut?!
Aviator. No, it wasn't. That 'news' was a misinterpretation that went viral. http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/01/29/has-australia-really-banned-small-breasts/
There is a no law. Depictions of women who look under 18 in pornography are refused classification (this doesn't make them illegal, it's not a breach of the law, it means it can't be sold or distributed in Australia) and many adult women with a-cup breasts can indeed look younger than 18.
But that is assessed on a case by case basis. The 'law' that small boobs are illegal is utter bollocks. As I have said plenty often in the past.
The anti-censorship brigade really needs to learn the facts before jumping on the moral high horse. (that's not directed at you, Aviator, but I keep an eye of these things on twitter and the like, and the sheer ignorance is doing nothing but reassuring the censors that the anti-censorship brigade are not worth listening to.)
@rwq age of consent and pornography are two different sets of law. That's why. It's nit lolwht at all.
@ #8 - I completely agree with you, the 3DS sure does need RPGs.
Now about the topic at hand. The countries that banned DoA are absolutely at liberty to regulate their laws the ways they see fit, as long as malicious intentions are absent. Though, in my opinion, banning DoA is a bit of an overreaction. I just feel sorry for the people caught in the cross fire - all the gamers who don't have a superb 3DS game to indulge them selves with.
I am from Australia and I have a copy of the game with the original PG rating! I wonder if I will be able to trade it now? I should keep it as a collectors item!
@Aviator, I completely agree. The Australian board should have done their job properly and play the game instead of listening to all the bad press on the internet. I dont think it should be reclassified anyway, there is violence in it but no bloodshed, no bad language and it doesnt sexualise young girls anymore than any other animie-style game.
I always found that the DoA series one of the best fighting series and the larger cast of female characters isnt just a draw to male players but is a GREAT draw for female players. I mean my girlfriend loves to play it and kick big burly mens backsides, talk about sexual equality DoA has always had it. lol
ozgameshop.com all Australians use this site, seriously not even silly advertising this site is epic. Very cheap games and best of all - free delivery, however it takes about 2 weeks to reach you after they post it, but so worth it. They have DOA:D and even got MK9 from this site.
@Raptor78: You're just assuming that they merely reacted to the bad press on the internet and never played it.
Like I said DOA 4 was rated M, It will probably just get released again with a new rating.
@Raptor78 Actually two of the cutscenes have blood in them but the second one of the two hardly has any.
@mariofanatic128, yeah never thought about the cutscenes. But I wouldnt say the game has "bloody" violence.
Im sure the game will come out with a similar rating as the UK with a 16 or the Australian equivilent. (what age is considered an M?)
M is 15+ recommended.
MA is 15+ required.
I reckon this game belongs as an M, MA if we want to get all conservative about the upskirts.
Thats fair enough, we got it at 16 in the UK so I think it will get passed as an M, expecting it to get a PG was a bit optamistic. lol
It's weird that there is debate out age or the cover, but in the US version I saw at retail the BACK of the box, weirdly featured a full screenshot of the Kasumi profile that clearly shows the "AGE: 17" listed. I guess it's not a problem here, though, but still it's a weird choice to feature that. I don't see anyone mention that back of the box art though; what's there in the other regions? Does it show that profile or something else?
Well are they under 18 or not? It's not like the characters' ages really change depending on the region.
@moosa - The ages of certain characters are n/a in the Euro version, I asume its the same in Australia too.
The people who come up with these censorship ideas really should be rejected by the Australian public! If the people can force their government to ban cattle exports to Indonesia, it must surely be possible to make their politicians fire some tax-wasting no-good hypocritical censorship-officials. Viva la Revolución Amigo!
I don't have a 3DS yet, but I'm gonna buy Dead or Alive Dimensions before some censorship-Nazi in Holland gets some crazy ideas too. It's all so hypocritical! It makes me feel sick!
@58 Dude, we're not Egypt. Nor do we need to be. And no, the Australian Government is out of this fight. It actually supports an R18+ for games.
@SennaKurosaki
umm.... What?
So has the other versions of this game on other platforms have had this type of problem at various countries?
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