Saints Row 4 banned in Australia

Australians rejoiced back in January when the Classification Board approved the selling of 18+ games. This new rating opened the doors for games such as God Of War: Ascension and Dead Island Riptide to be sold on Australian soil. No longer would games be condemned and deemed inappropriate for even adult gamers. Or at least so we thought.

Saints Row IV has today become the first game to be given the Refused Classification rating even with the new 18+ rating in place.

The Australian Classification Board had this to say on the matter;

In the Board’s opinion, Saints Row IV, includes interactive, visual depictions of implied sexual violence which are not justified by context. In addition, the game includes elements of illicit or proscribed drug use related to incentives or rewards. Such depictions are prohibited by the computer games guidelines.

“depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified.”

Refused Classification is not quite the same as outright banning a game country-wide though and legally you will still be allowed to own the game. It’ll just be very hard to get your hands on it due to it not being sold.. anywhere. Importing is always a viable option of course.

Saints Row 4 releases world-wide (minus Australia) for PS3, 360 and PC in August.

[update]
Developers Volition have confirmed they will be releasing an Australian version of the game that adheres to the Classification guidelines.