Silent Hill f has been banned in Australia, and no one knows why
https://www.eurogamer.net/silent-hill-f-has-been-banned-in-australia-and-no-one-knows-whyOpen linkView original on lemm.ee218
Comments47https://www.eurogamer.net/silent-hill-f-has-been-banned-in-australia-and-no-one-knows-whyOpen linkView original on lemm.ee
Australia's usually really strict when it comes to violence in video games, but the Silent Hill series isn't really known for intense gore. Though, the trailer looked a bit like it was going to be a bit body horror-focused (I got lots of Junji Ito vibes from it), so maybe SH:F will actually be a bit bloodier than other SH games.
So, the land where everything is trying to kill you is very anti violence?
Each country is allowed a certain number of base violence stat points. Australia put all of theirs into nature.
That explains Canada.
They put all of theirs into a random goose.
Aren't we forgetting the NHL is a thing
Tierzoo, is the goose OP?
Probably because it's Australia and their government are incredibly stupid shitheads when it comes to violence in games.
Japanese schoolgirls is a big NO-NO in Australia 😅 Jokes aside, this is the first time I hear about this game, watching trailer I immediately thought about "When They Cry", and then I read this from article: "Silent Hill f is being developed by Neobards Entertainment (which has previously served as a support studio for Capcom's Resident Evil games), with creature and character design by Kera, and a script by When They Cry writer Ryukishi07." So now I'm hyped!
Oh wow I rarely find people who know about When They Cry. Now I'm interested in seeing more about the game.
Australia is pretty censorship heavy is it not? They banned Cannibal Corpse until 2006. I mean no disrespect to any Aussie's reading this.
None taken, I still get embarrassed when I remember they banned GTA V cuz it had weed in it, got brought back quickly with an R18+ rating games couldn't get up until then coincidentally.
How's the fight for legalization coming down under?
Medicinal and scientific use is legal, low-THC hemp based stuff is being made but federally speaking recreational use is still mostly illegal.
Didn't even know this existed lol, crazy how decentralised the game industry has become now that e3 is gone. There's no official "time to announce your games" part of the year anymore.
It was bundled in the announcement of all the silent hill games coming. Which was mostly overshadowed by the SH2 remake.
Silent Hill Fortissimo?
Silent Hill [Pay Your Respects]
They banned Rim World for a little bit as well, although not banned for now as there was some pushback. Be interesting to see if this games gets the same treatment after awhile.
They probably thought it was a game about eating ass
RimjobWorld is a lewd framework for mods for that game, if you didn't know
They updated the article. Good.
It's just waiting for clarification.
They're pretty strict about depictions of violence against minors, right?
If PEGI tried this kind of thing I'm pretty sure the general public would linch them. Fortunately with Steam there can be completely ignored these days anyway.
Nanny state strikes back.
This is the future the USA would have had if ESRB wasn't cobbled together in haste
Edit: it wasn't banned, but Mortal Kombat 10 was and STILL is banned because of violence. This is what happens when you inject "morality" into government policymaking.
Government regulations are better than companies deciding what's allowed.
Barely. Probably equally bad in some cases.
An educated citizenry that actively participates in government is the best solution, but we know that’s almost impossible for multiple reasons.
I would not say equally bad, citizens are at least theoretically able to influence their government in a democratic system; you have no hope of influencing the ESRB or MPAA or CCA
Equal “badness” in the sense of commercial/oligarchy takeover or the authoritarian nanny state. Extremes where citizen input is token at best. Russia is technically a democracy, but no regular person there has a hope of changing the government or policy with a vote.
Yeah mostly I would agree with that... unfortunately in this case you get exhibit A. Australia.
Good thing it wasn’t actually banned.
I see that. We'll just have to see
Good luck banning torrents you crotchety old fuckers.
Don't forget to use a VPN so you don't get traced by copyright lawyers! They often seed torrents in the name of gathering IPs to take action against.
That doesn't really work in Australia.
AFAIK Dallas Buyers Club was the last major case and the conditions the courts placed on any contact caused the rights holders to decide it wasn't worth the bother. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35547045
The court told them they could buy the infringer's contact details as a bulk lot that averaged $127 per person. But only if they invoiced for $127 + whatever they were charging for the film. In addition the court would need to review and approve any draft correspondence and call scripts.
All up it feels like the court was taking the most hostile interpretation of the law to protect individuals from being harassed by the business. Good stuff.
I really like Silent Hill, but that is just the stupidest name for a game.
I don’t think so, it’s the name of the town where it takes place. I’d argue that it’s no better or worse than resident evil, stardew valley, or world of Warcraft.
It's the "f" that makes it stupid.
It’s the name of a fictitious town in Maine, where things are deeply wrong. People who are subjected to the town end up accounting for their worst impulses via physical manifestations of terrible things. Interestingly enough, most of the time it’s incredibly bright in Silent Hill, easy to see the individually-exclusive monsters coming… were it not for the overwhelming fog with a character of its own.
They're probably referring to "f", not "Silent Hill"
Wait is that not a typo
At least according to Wikipedia, the "f" at the end is indeed part of the intended game name.
The children are safe.
Considering all the warnings Konami has put on the game it's no surprise Australia probably pissed their pants when they saw that.
This is only partially true, Saints Row 4 and The Stick of Truth released modified versions in Australia. Hotline Miami 2 remains without and official release in Australia.
As for Silent Hill f? OFLC have pulled the page listing it as RC.
https://automaton-media.com/en/news/silent-hill-f-ban-in-australia-retracted-age-rating-up-for-review-again/
The screenshot of the pulled page indicates it was an IARC classification i.e. it was automatically classified based an Konami's answers to a generic survey distributed to classification boards globally. If Konami contest the automatic classification then it will be looked at by actual humans who may determine that offensive content is contextualized to a degree that it can be released (or failing that give a list of content that needs to be modified).
And it's been given: MA15+ Strong Horror Violence
No other choice but to sail the high seas then
f