Doug Lombardi responds to Australia L4D ban

[Blink]

As you may already know, Left 4 Dead has been refused a rating by the Australian Classification board which basically means it can't be sold. Doug Lombardi made a comment about the situation over at Shacknews:

We were surprised to hear of this news yesterday," the executive informed us. "Obviously, everyone at Valve is pretty bummed."

"It would be a shame if folks in Australia, or anywhere else, are unable to purchase Left 4 Dead 2 because of a ratings issue," Lombardi lamented.

Here's hoping Valve can convince them otherwise.

Check out the original story.

[dissonance]

AFAIK, Steam is location-independent, so what's actually stopping people from buying it online via proxies?
Is the Aussie government really going to all the trouble required to block the game from being played, or are they just going to block its' sale?

[F0xHunter]

Thanks for the tip dissonance, I'm off to buy games in good ol' $!

[popcornjake]

After doing some digging (wikipedia) it turns out that F.E.A.R 2 was banned for the same reasons, but the descision was soon overturned after an appeal. With any luck the same will happen for l4d2.

Valve is going to lose a lot of sales over this, at my school alone the word was going around about the ban and there were a damn lot of kis who had been wanting to buy it. When you think about all the 100s of potential buyers amongst the 1,000s of schools in the country, as well as the 10,000s of adult gamers around, that's a lot of money being taken out of the economy. I think it is fair to say that the government willingly taking that much money out of the economy in today's situation is a pretty rotten choice.

[FlynT]

Im sure Valve and EA will find a way to bypass the ban. And if not anyone out there will find a way to bypass the ban on a legal way. Like dissonance said via proxy or via gifts on steam if that works.

Anyway good to know that Valve has an eye on this, so theres hope.

[Coulianos]

This is very strange... There are far worse games than L4D.

[source-maps]

well I do understand though, shooting unarmed humans and cutting their heads and arms off etc, but it's just stupid and unfair for adults... I mean people who can join the army and kill real people should be allowed to kill people in a video game

[zombie@computer]

yarr, you rang matey?

[source-maps]

yarr, you rang matey?

seriously there is no point doing that, cuz you need to play it online with your friends

[zombie@computer]

yarr, you rang matey?

seriously there is no point doing that, cuz you need to play it online with your friends

arr? tis talk like a pirate day matey! you can get monkey island stuff for free today! much more fun than shooting the undead (thats soo 1996).

[superdoughboy4]

*IMG*
yarr, you rang matey?

seriously there is no point doing that, cuz you need to play it online with your friends

Cracked servers.
That's what people do with CSS and Garry's Mod and all that.

[kraid]

I guess the Australians will get the German version of L4D2, too.

[ScarT]

I guess the Australians will get the German version of L4D2, too.

If they're lucky yeah LOL! You can't connect to Steam using a proxy, and it won't be sold to people located in Australia. Furthermore you can't gift games that aren't available to the receiver.

[saberx2]

this really is a problem that should just work itself out - given enough time. let them ban it. then all the little computer kiddies all across the country will raise such a shitstorm temper tantrum of wrist slitting and school vandalism the authorities will have no choice but to let them buy it - or be voted out by the parents of the kids; who will no longer be able to stand any more of the whining and bitching.

seriously, though... if the aussies don't want people wasting time on this kind of mindless simulated violence - who can blame them? maybe more people will go outside or do something constructive.

[F0xHunter]

I guess the Australians will get the German version of L4D2, too.

If they're lucky yeah LOL! You can't connect to Steam using a proxy, and it won't be sold to people located in Australia. Furthermore you can't gift games that aren't available to the receiver.

Buy them trough your browser, while using a proxy-server in the Americas?