In what can only be described as the most completely incomprehensible move yet by the Classification Board, the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV has been rated MA15+ for sale in Australia later this year.

As you’ll recall, Grand Theft Auto IV was previously rated down to MA15+ for consoles following a series of voluntary edits by its publisher Rockstar Games to remove certain options involving violence and prostitution. However, today Rockstar Games released this statement:

“Grand Theft Auto IV PC has been rated MA15+ strong violence, sex scenes, coarse language, and drug references by the Australian Classification Office. The PC game is unedited in any way and identical in content to the international version.”

So if the edited version is MA15+ worthy, and the unedited version is also MA15+ worthy, how is any parent supposed to have faith that the Classification Board has the transparency and consistency to properly inform them of content? Inconsistent nonsense like this from the Classification Board just goes to show how badly the Australian video games ratings system is in need of an overhaul.

Source: Uncut GTA IV PC coming to Australia (Dan Chiappini, Gamespot AU)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 4:45 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Comment on Uncut GTA IV Rated MA15+

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   emrinho says:

   I think they did the right thing rating gta as ma15. But little kids will play the game anyway.