www.neowin.net/news/gamers/09/12/06/aliens-vs-predator-banned-in-australia

Yet another game has been refused classification, the basic equivalent of being banned.

Due to the lack of a "mature" rating for games in Australia, any game that exceeds the current highest rating of "MA15+" is refused classification, meaning that "it cannot be made commercially available in the country, in an essence banning the game."

As I'm sure some of us remember, Left 4 Dead 2 encountered the same dilemma. In order for Valve to be able to sell to the Australian audience, they had to heavily censor it. Needless to say, a lot of people in Australia were thrown into a new dimension of pissed off. I remember reading through the angry threads in the steam forums for L4D2.

Of course, all hope is not lost. I forgot where I saw it, but I do remember reading that Fallout 3 was also refused classification, but was given an MA15+ rating after it was resubmitted. That strategy failed for Valve (both submissions for L4D2 were refused. The censored version was the only one to pass), but it does still give some hope of an uncensored version of the game being made available in Australia, right?

All that aside, the fact that this is a problem in the first place is ridiculous. Why is there no mature rating? More importantly, why is it left up to a small group of government officials (the most non-conservative people on the planet, as we all know[/sarcasm]) to decide things like this?