Dead or Alive: Dimensions Aussie rating revoked

Um....Dead or Alive Extreme 2 IS also rated as PG, as well as a Japanese RPG that allows girls to dance in their underwear to unleash a strong powerful magic that destroys everyone on the screen. I know it said PG, but I know full well that it should have been rated M. But surely, to pull the game from the shelves all because of a little mistake on the Classification Boards and their failure to communicate to the Publisher the difference between the PG and M ratings were....I think it is more to do with the failure of the Classification Board to properly play though the game than it is for the Publisher to give them what they think is the rating. Also the PEGI system is a little bit useless with their 'tick the boxes' format. The american ESRB is better when they have a REAL board viewing the game in question and they GIVE a REAL T rating or an E or E10 or M17 rating that is CLEAR and not something stupid like M when there is already an MA15+. Seriously, game ratings are all about Communication to Parents...not trying to tell us what we can or can't play.

To be honest, the real fault is the classification board for not really PLAYING the game, they just ask a bunch of random people even those who have no interest in gaming and ask them if this game footage is offensive or not. The real people who give the ratings in the classification board don't really play the games themselves,,,and that is more to the fault of the classification board and not the actual games themselves... I find it really dissapointing that Brendan O'conner had to praise the Classification Board in the media statement, but I seriously think that if he really had played the game he would find that such content even though not suitable for a PG audience, he would be a little unhappy with the Classification Board for not really playing though just one minor game mode "the camera mode" as they should have been doing their job and checking EVERY mode of the game. The Classification Board needs to be independent from government control, Or else more stuff like this will happen and it would be the developers that would suffer because of the Classification Boards mistakes

what the hell is with our classification board? old music videos of miley cyrus probably are more revealing than this game, and they get fed to our youngsters all the time, just like videos of lady gaga showing her junk. And then they get all tense when a game has the smallest sexual theme or small amount of violence. i've just got to ask WTF ?!!

Like children care if a piece of white underwear is shown or if some numbers in the booklet are to small. But I'm sure it's not easy to draw the line between suitable and not suitable when you have to name facts to defend a decision and can't just say "But it looks all nice and colorful".

I can see the amount of cleavage on American network TV. I thought we were, like, prudes or something compared to the rest of the world. Besides, everyone knows that once you hit 18 you're over the hill in J-games.

It's pretty stupid that this all happened. I mean I live in the US so I have the USA version, and I can safely say that there's nothing wrong with the game. Sure it DESERVED the T rating since it's a fighting game, and has some language. Heck I know games that had a LOT worse than that and still got an age 10 and up rating (Shadow). Really I don't get what the big deal is about the female main characters. Ok so... you'll get arrested if you take a picture of someone in a swim suit in AU if they're under the age of 18? If not then why is this game a problem? Pretty sure a low cut shirt isn't as bad as a swim suit in real life. Really the worst thing you'll see in this game is *spoilers* when the ninjas are cutting people in half. It's a fast cutscene but you can still see whats going on. Game should be for ages 13 +, but it shouldn't be "banned" because of the ability to take pictures.

I have a copy and it being PG did strike me as rather strange. It's my first DOA game, but I'm sure most gamers would know what DOA is infamous for right? I wish these classification boards were more in touch with the gamers. You know, who they are actually selling to? They would get a plethora of more useful rating information that way...

@Maxx_the_Slash The game has not "technically" been banned in Australia, its classification has been revoked and needs a new submission (which has been done according to the report), in which it'll be given a new classificaion. It was banned in parts of Europe because of the child exploitation concerns (why not pick on them Gamespot?) in relation to photography mode with under 18 girls. I do have a copy of Dimensions and the PG rating did strike me as odd, since all previous Dead or Alive games were given an M rating in Australia. Gamespot is just over-reacting once again, this has nothing to with the R18+ debate and I support the R18+ rating. But this "classification revoked" could happen to any game in Australia even if we had a R18+.

I need a shovel. Why is the classification board here so stupid?!

now i want this game

@CorruptGamerGX - actually, i imported my copy from the UK, because 1) it was so much cheaper, and 2) they hadn't updated the release date after it had been delayed from being a launch title and i was optimistic. Also, game.com.au is still taking orders, at least 10 minutes ago. Still, DOA rated PG to start with ... seems like they didn't play the game ... look at the box...

I'll restate what I posted on Joystiq about this: Australia is ****ed up. They banned DOA Dimensions because you can take pictures of characters that may or may not be underage. Well, each character's age is displayed in their profiles in Arcade mode, and only a handful are listed as N/A or Unknown. And those who are Unknown (Kasumi and Ayane mostly) are too busty to be 17 or under. As for other characters, Ein is aged Unknown, but he's Hayate with amnesia and Hayate is listed as 23, so Ein is as well. Eliot and Kokoro are Unknown and could be 17 or under, but it doesn't matter because they're fully clothed (in fact, Kokoro is the most fully clothed female character in the game). Kasumi Alpha and Alpha-152 are clones of Kasumi and should be as old as her too, and Alpha-152 isn't even human, she's liquid (or slime). I don't understand why the game is banned in Australia. Everyone is fully clothed and you can't take their clothes off. And those who could possibly be underage have plenty of clothes on. So what's the ****ing problem? Is Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition banned too because Sakura wears a very short skirt and thus shows lot of leg skin?

I'm not going to complain about the rating system, but I am going to complain why it got PG instead of M. M is the one after PG. Why wasn't it rated that?

It shouldn't be rated PG. Its an M game.

The Aussie ratings board reminds me of people that buy games or rent movies just based on the cover of the case.

@karnovrpg That's certainly what they make it sound like. o.O

This is way too shady. It's hard to tell now if the CBoard even played the game at all to spot this inappropriate stuff in the first place.

Why don't they just do the American solution of making the age of the unknown girls in question "unknown" because they're spooky mystical ninja types or some such silliness...not that this isn't all silliness anyways.

Wait, is there a hidden hardcore sex scene in the game we all missed?

It should be reclassified into a kick a$$ fighting game.

Don't worry Aussies you can just impo.... Oh yeah, I forgot Nintendo was dumb enough to region lock the 3DS.

Tecmo is straight up dumb to not make all the girls 21 after all this time. Will it really alienate so many otaku to have them out of their teens? Goddammit.

@mariostar0001: Yep. Complaints are gonna be flying.

mandatory complaint here--the Australian rating system sucks. That said, in this case this was the publishers' fault rather than the government's. Trying to sell anything DoA as PG was the first mistake anyway >_>.

This is stupid and unnesercary, oh and before anyone nags about it, its because they submitted for pg (from what I understood), and failed, thus no classification unless re-submitted. Nothing about R rating issues here ma fellow aussies, just sit back and wait for it to...EVENTUALLY come...

Cue "mandatory" complaints about Australia's rating system.