Gamespot.com reports that Midway’s Blitz: The League has become the first victim of of Australia’s restrictive classification system for games. Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification refused to give a classification to the game due to drug use which effectively bans the sell of the game in the country.

“‘In the course of the game, the player may access what are purported to be both legal and illegal performance-enhancing drugs for the members of the team. Choosing to use these drugs (by selecting from a menu) will have both negative and positive effects on team-members, for example, by improving their speed while making them more susceptible to injury. Each drug has different characteristics. Fake urine samples may also be acquired for avoiding positive drug tests. While the game-player can choose not to use the drugs, in the Board’s majority view there is an incentive to use them. By using them judiciously, the player can improve the performance of the football team (while managing the negative effects) and have a better chance of winning games, thereby winning bets and climbing the league table,’ the OFLC board report stated.

Under the Australian Computer Games Table of the National Classification Code, titles that ‘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’ will be refused classification.

Red Ant Enterprises, the local distributor for Blitz: The League, has yet to decide whether it will appeal the ruling, according to marketing manager Ivone Bozzi.”

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