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Fallout 3, the third part of award winning Fallout role playing video game has been banned in Australia due to drug use depiction.

Office of Film and Literature Classification, which assigns rating to films and games, ordered stopping its sales and promotion in Australia.

It should be noted that video games to be sold in Australia must qualify for a rating of MA15+ or less, due to the lack of an adult R18+ classification similar to that given to films. According to the report the classifications board denied Fallout 3 a rating due to its depiction of realistic drug use. It reads:

In the Board’s view these realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method bring the ’science-fiction’ drugs in line with ‘real-world’ drugs. The player can also select and use ‘Morphine’ (a proscribed drug) which has the positive effect of enabling the character to ignore limb pain when the character’s extremities are targeted by the enemy.

It also stated that the rating has been denied explicitly due to showing drug use otherwise violence in the game can be accommodated to assign MA15+ rating.

In the past, introduction of an R18+ rating for video games was blocked by South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson as an unanimous decision by all state and federal Attorneys-General is required to alter classification guidelines in Australia.

Naturally the decision has generated criticism from video game enthusiasts who called it ridiculous.

Fallout consists of traveling around the game world, in a post-apocalyptic scenario, visiting locations and interacting with the local inhabitants, typically in real-time.