Hotline Miami Appears To Be Getting Another Physical Run On Switch

Meanwhile, Wrong Number is still banned in Australia due to a few seconds of fake pixelated rape. The irony is that if the game been released before the R18+ rating had been introduced for games (which brought with it some stupidly vague and unnecessary restrictions on depictions of sexual violence, which hypocritically do not apply to films), then it would not have been rated any higher than MA15+ uncut under the old guidelines.

The same goes for virtually any other R18+ game whose only consumer advice is “References to sexual violence”, which maddeningly, can include non-consensual touching in a non-sexual context.

Meanwhile, scenes of sexual violence are permitted in films rated as low as M (mostly analogous to BBFC’s 12 and MPAA’s PG-13 ratings), whereas the same scenes would get a game banned.

So much for reflecting “community standards”.

@Silly_G

They should just make Laws that allows the Purchases of such Media for Adults 18+ and basta.

If it is really "outstanding" make a Law that such Stuff has to be in a separate Area were Kids (and Hypocrits) can't see and reach the Media.

I think nowadays Media Competence should be teached in School.
Be it because Movies/Games can have disturbing Stuff or because People are believing everything in Facebook/Whatsapp.

I thought this has been known for quite some time now ? With that said, though. I have it pre-ordered. Fantastic 2 games.

I wish for every limited time only, 1 time print game would get a normal, widespread releases like this!

I didn't want to be that guy, but I'm going to do it. This isn't news, it's been up for pre-order from various retailers for weeks.

Can we get a rerun of shantae pirates curse on switch??

You're just writing about this now? I've had it preordered for a month or longer....

I'm glad this happened as I missed the original limited run and the prices were around £100. I've had it pre-ordered for a few months on Amazon now, maybe this is fresh news in the US.

@tonyp1987 that would be great. Imagine having just paid £300 for a copy on eBay to see an official physical release.

@noobish_hat yeah, it's gotten out of hand. As someone who likes to open their games and actually play them, the whole limited run thing has created an horrid ecosystem of speculators who keep everything they buy sealed. I'm glad Limited Run Games do exist but I kind of wish all the games came unsealed to negated this ridiculous situation.

@Old-Red Not fresh news in the US.

Not interested in a murder spree simulator. It seems like a really well-made pair of games, but it's not my thing.

@Azuris the problem with that is kids still aquire it. Most parents don’t care and buy it for their kids because they know their kids are smart enough to know the difference between a game and reality. The real problem though is governments trying to tell you how to raise your kids

@Old-Red they really should. I mean I open mine to put the collectors cards in the cases so they stay together and I play the games. It’s not a collectible to me if it hasn’t been used.

@noobish_hat SRRG should give those of us that bought it refunds for that scam.

Meanwhile, scenes of sexual violence are permitted in films rated as low as M (mostly analogous to BBFC’s 12 and MPAA’s PG-13 ratings), whereas the same scenes would get a game banned.

So much for reflecting “community standards”.

@Silly_G If you don't mind a question about all this: why is Australia's censorship system so strict? From my perspective, maybe I should ask: why is it so much more imposing and restrictive than that of New Zealand, Canada or the UK?

I'm guessing the moral panic about video games infected Australia in the '90s as well as North America, but if so, it seems to persist there.

@COVIDberry : It's hard to say. They're strict in some matters but lenient in others, but in more recent years, they have become even MORE strict for the most part, even though parents have expressed concern that the G, PG, and M classification categories are becoming harder to distinguish as even the most kid-friendly of movies/games are often slapped with a PG, and other family movies are branded with an M. Our M rating is generally a lot more relaxed than the equivalent ratings overseas, which is why it would be so frustrating for parents, as the same rating for a fantasy movie with a bit of unrealistic violence (and no other objectionable content of note) gets the same rating as a film containing frequent coarse language, realistic violence containing use of real-world weapons, and sexual content.

For example, the G rating used to be a LOT more relaxed in the 90s. You can get away with some minor cuss words (including the bum words and bass turds), while PG was usually reserved for stronger terms (scatological/genital slang), and the M rating was basically a free-for-all, though aggression, frequency, and sexual context could push it in to higher categories accordingly (nowadays, a single use of the C word bags you an MA15+ rating, though it didn't use to be this way). Many episodes of The Simpsons were rated G in Australia, often with little to no cuts, despite uses of coarse language, sexual references, and bloody animated violence. A VHS compilation called "Sex, Lies, and The Simpsons" was given a paltry G rating (uncut) by the Board back in the day (with a hilariously risqué cover to boot!), though it was reclassified as PG for its DVD release 6 years later (though there was no legal need to do so). Now, I'm not suggesting that things weren't a little problematic then too, but we're just seeing a different kind of absurdity concerning many of the Board's decisions.

Nowadays, a single use of "ass" is slapped with a PG, which is absolutely ridiculous considering the plethora of far stronger terms that are typically permitted at the category. Meanwhile, a film like Lady Bird, with only a few uses of the F-bomb, and two C-words in a conversational manner gets slapped with an MA15+ rating, while 8 Mile, having at least 200 uses of the F-bomb (many aggressive) has an unrestricted M rating. I know what I'd rather show to young teens!

Breast nudity (even sexualised) used to be fine at the PG rating since the Classification Board's inception until around the late 2000s. Nowadays, a scene at a strip club with no nudity gets slapped with an M rating. Sexy Poker for WiiWare was originally banned for incentivising breast nudity, but the irony (and hypocrisy) is, had the girls been bare-breasted by default, it would likely have been fine with an M rating (maximum MA15+ at the time). The game was censored internationally in response to the Australian banning (the BBFC approved of the uncensored version of Sexy Poker with a mere 15 rating for "moderate nudity"), and the censored version was approved with an M classification for "Sexual references". Meanwhile, a recent documentary titled House of Cardin contains sexualised breast nudity and somehow managed to score a G classification! Where the hell is the consistency? I could understand if the nudity in question was that of a breastfeeding mother or in an otherwise educational context, but this is ridiculous. (1/2)

@COVIDberry: Gambling content used to warrant a PG classification for casino-style games back in the day, though any game that even vaguely resembles gambling now (even without an incentive or reward) is slapped with an M classification (with few exceptions). But actual gambling involving real-world currency can be issued as little as a G classification under the guise of an "in-game purchase". Utter hypocrisy.

Their "standards" are really topsy-turvy these days, and there seems to be little rhyme or reason to what they do. All I would suggest is for consistency and for the various categories to be distinguishable from one another. I used to agree with most of their decisions back in the day, but nowadays I am finding myself disagreeing with them more and more.

I can't exhaustively cover everything they get right or wrong or why they do what they do. I had previously applied for a job with the Board (as film/game classification is an issue that I am very passionate about) so I could reflect community standards to the best of my ability, but my efforts were fruitless. (2/2)

I got these in the first physical run, and played it for a few days, then got bored of the repetitiveness, will sell them later.
One reason I love physicals, you can regret buying a game but then get rid of it, and if it was limited run, normally for more than you paid for it

@Silly_G Hmmmmm.

First, my thanks for the detailed reply. I've met a number of Australians here in Canada, and I have at least a passing familiarity with the culture, and certainly your sense of humour. You guys seem to have a very well-developed sense of irony toward authority, along with a more relaxed attitude toward life than we do, so I am pretty curious about what the heck is going on down there. (The hypocrisy around sex - bodies bad, violence good - is quite familiar, of course.)

I see that even the M rating still allows kids to "legally access this material", whereas I've seen kids attempting to purchase ESRB-M games at retail here being firmly turned down pretty often.

After considering your examples, I think my question is this: is the Classification Board falling into disrepute with parents, and in the culture broadly? In North America, I find that video games (and gamers) still have a definite stigma around them for many people, and I wonder if that perhaps explains some of the inconsistency. (Haha, sorry - that's two questions, I know...)

@COVIDberry : Don't confuse our M rating with the ESRB's M rating. The letter M is all they have in common. Our M rating is akin to the ESRB's T and PEGI's 12 ratings, while the closest equivalent to the ESRB's M rating here are our MA15+ and R18+ ratings (funnily enough, there are a smaller number of PG rated games that are rated M in the States, and likewise with movies rated R in the U.S.). MA15+ is legally restricted to over 15s, however, under 15s can buy/watch the material if accompanied by an adult guardian. R18+ is only permissible to those over 18. No exceptions.

After considering your examples, I think my question is this: is the Classification Board falling into disrepute with parents, and in the culture broadly?

Disrepute would be a strong word. I think most people are generally indifferent to it, and the fact that the Board has been rating certain material so much more strictly than they would have in the past is also making consumers wary of them, simply because the classification system is not fulfilling what it is supposed to. For example, detective games such as the Ace Attorney series that contain adult themes and depictions of bloody crime scenes receives the same rating ("PG - Mild themes and violence") as something as innocuous as Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu/Eevee that contains only very mild violence/themes and really should have received a rating no higher than G (albeit with consumer advice of "Very mild violence and themes"). Many other recent G rated games contain superfluous consumer advice that are arguably of no use to parents, and the content in question is unlikely to be of concern to most. The PG ratings for the Ace Attorney games, however, are perfectly fine, in my opinion.

And while the G rating used to accommodate a number of minor curse words (as mentioned above), nowadays, the Classification Board discloses warnings of "Very mild coarse language" merely for uses of "hell", "damn", "bloody" and even "JERK" of all things when NO-ONE batted an eyelid in the past except for perhaps the most mollycoddling of parents, so I am particularly puzzled as to why such language is being flagged to parents and why they are kowtowing to the noisy minority of those who take exception to even the mildest of language being used in the G classification.

The noisy minority do not reflect the generally accepted "community standards" of the majority.

Any coarse language should be infrequent at G, yes, but it's not doing the system or families a service to disproportionately classify material so harshly either, especially considering how much more relaxed the PG and M classifications are in this respect, and attitudes to the mildest of terms generally.

There are a million and one reasons as to why our society of all things has changed, especially in the last decade, but that isn't something that I can break down in a mere post on a Nintendo fan site.