Another Game Has Been Banned In Australia
by Alex Walker
Last week I wrote how Devolver announced they wouldn't be releasing Mother Russia Bleeds, a visceral side-scrolling brawler, in Australia and New Zealand. At the time, the publisher blamed censors for not approving of the game, even though Mother Russia Bleeds wasn't listed by the Classification Board or New Zealand's equivalent, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC).
Being gamers themselves, the OFLC opted to fire back at Devolver on Twitter this morning. Amidst all of that, the publisher was able to confirm that the co-op brawler has been banned from sale in Australia.
All of this kicked off with the Switch version of Mother Russia Bleeds. The game has been out on PC for a few years, even though there's good reason to believe the Classification Board would never approve its sale locally. Here's an excerpt from my story last week so you know just how problematic it is:
As enemies are killed in Mother Russia Bleeds, their bodies begin to spasm. The player can then take a syringe to extract a drug called Nekro from the corpses of those bodies, which can be injected into the player character to either go berserk or regain health.
Other drugs have different effects: Bloody Mary turns enemy corpses into walking bombs, White Russian increases player damage more than usual, Blue Lagoon heals more than other drugs, and so on.
Given that Fallout has been stung for using drugs to heal, injecting blood from corpses so you can go berserk seems like a bit of a red flag.
But in any case, the game is available through Steam for Australians. If you're releasing a game on the Switch, however, Nintendo mandates that publishers and developers submit the game to censors around the world.
The most efficient way to do that is through the IARC, the International Alliance Ratings Coalition. The coalition is a partnership of content ratings bodies from around the world. Legislation was introduced a few years ago to enable the Classification Board to join that coalition, which offers an automated system for people selling digital products (apps, games) online.
It's partly out of necessity. There's too many games and apps for ratings agencies to review, and the IARC's tool helps deal with the workload. Publishers fill out a series of questions about the content of their game, and the tool generates consumer advice labels and ratings for every member nation in the IARC.
This is where Mother Russia Bleeds comes in.
Even though a listing for the visceral co-op brawler wasn't visible on the Classification Board website, Devolver explained over email and Twitter that they had received a "Refused Classification" rating through the IARC system:
Office of Film & Lit Classification
@NZOFLC
ยท Nov 13, 2018
Just to clarify for fans, MOTHER RUSSIA BLEEDS has not been submitted for classification in either Aus OR NZ so...sneaky marketing hype? 100% clickbait! May be of interest @dippizuka @kksl1der (we read your articles!)
As outlined in legislation and more decipherable English on the Classification website, IARC decisions carry the same weight as a ruling from the Classification Board themselves:
Classifications made by the IARC tool are based on Australian standards and values. They use Australian classification symbols and are made using the Australian classification guidelines. They are legal classification decisions.
A rating for Mother Russia Bleeds still hasn't appeared on the Classification Board website at the time of writing. If a game is banned in Australia, a listing should appear on the Board's site.
However, this is all for Australia only. While we share a lot of commonalities with our Kiwi cousins, being a member nation of the IARC isn't one of them. A representative of the Office and Film and Literature Classification told Kotaku Australia explained that New Zealand isn't a member of the IARC coalition, and they use their own legislative framework and guidelines to rate games there.
"[Mother Russia Bleeds] has not been submitted for classification here in New Zealand, [and] therefore has not been banned here. Australia and NZ have different frameworks for classification, and we do not follow the IARC system," the OFLC representative said.
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