It seems RimWorld has been block from sale in Australia after a new console version upset the classification board. Its been removed for sale on steam but I haven't seen any notice of it been block from sale here yet, but I'm not in Oz. Is it blocked here? Apparently the new console version was refused classification because of its positive portrayal of drug use,

https://delistedgames.com/rimworld-delisted-in-australia-after-acb-classification/

No offense to modern day fellow Australians, this is just my historical humor acting up... but am I the only one who finds it hilarious that what was essentially a remote prison colony at first now holds itself to the highest "standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults”? :P

Don't want to support GOG much these days other than what I personally consider must-haves*, but sounds like Rimworld is doing something right if it's offending puritans. Intrigued by this game.

*And largely for practical purposes to purchase the offline installer since I feel there are no real guarantees we will be able to do so in the future when so much focus is on Galaxy.

It was the drugs that got Rimworld banned? Not the fact that you can rape people by psychically dominating them. Or that you can enslave people then sell them. Or imprison them and surgically remove their legs to prevent them from escaping - then harvest a kidney and lung and then keeping them alive until you need something like a heart or liver (or are hungry enough during winter to eat them and make a jacket from their skin).

So it wasn’t the fact that you can play as rapist space cannibals but it was the drugs? The drugs that are portrayed pretty negatively honestly. Start drinking beer and you’re pretty much guaranteed to lose your liver eventually. Smokeleaf can cause cancer. Yayo and Flake will destroy your kidneys and cause overdose eventually.

Drugs in general aren’t worth it unless you’re planning to use them to make money as an interplanetary drug dealer. I’d rather use psychic space powers to force psychically induced happiness - much less permanent damage.

The classification board here is rather retarded but always good for a laugh. I think they rated some all-ages anime game R18+ for "high-impact sexual violence" because a female character gets groped playfully.

Maybe because Australia has a REAL BAD druggo/Junkie problem

aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/illicit-drug-use

Every time I hear about Australia and video games, I often wonder how those Australian YouTubers that play violent video games aren't in super prison.

I dunno about the rest of you folks, but whenever a game gets pulled due to classification in my country this only makes me more interested in it.

It's partly because I want to know specifically why it was so "bad" that it got banned. Curiosity so to speak.

It's also because I thumb my nose at the ridiculousness of most decisions by censorship boards.

So congrats ACB, you just put the game on my radar.

Time to nip off to my brother's place and play it there I suppose.

Actually, for prisoners rules are usually more strict than for free people. So, everything checks out. :D

Contraband hideaway gaming?;)

Just remember main rule of Rimworld - discuss Rimworld only with other people playing Rimworld. Others will not take all that ridicule well. Most likely.

Oh, and happy gaming of course. :)
P.S. Bases in later stages tend to lag out AF.

And banning drugs works very well, the US learned this during the prohibition era... Meanwhile the dutch laugh their asses off.

What is this game about anyway? I know what "to rim" or "rimming" is, ie. analingus (=licking of ass), but how does that convert into a game?

I am surprised the game is reclassified due to "drug use", and not indecent sexual acts. And a RIMMING problem, I suppose?

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/sex/a12007398/rimming-tips/

For some reason the Aus classification board only dislikes drugs in games when a real-life name is used. Fallout uses fictional drugs like Med-X and has never had a problem. But RimWorld apparently used a real-life word for cocaine, yayo. Yeah it's retarded.

While I know you are just joking, it was ancient history, and the situation is not quite like you stated anyway.

For starters it was much more than a Penal Colony, and convicts were only a small portion of the population, as Australia got folk from many different parts of the world. Lots of Chinese, Lots of Europeans, Lots of folk from Scotland and Ireland trying to make a better life, especially the Irish due to the Potato Famine of that time, etc. In many regards, Australia is America's little brother, and plenty of convicts were shipped off to America and Canada too.

And in regard to those convicts, many were simple poor folk who had done nothing worse than steal a loaf of bread or similar, so it often wasn't some big crime, and just an indication of how badly Britain was, and of course they liked nothing better than to ship off their problems to elsewhere. Many Aussies if they discover it, are proud to have a convict past ... appeals to the rebel in us and sticking it to the man.

When it comes to censorship, Australia is at the forefront of being conservative plus politically correct ... sometimes that is good, sometimes bad. I've certainly had to grab some games via a friendly gift code from some nice folk. It may be the case, that a complaint has made them play the wiser side of caution card until they get around to investigating ... could be they have quite a backlog and there is the matter of priorities. Yep, just two DLCs only show up, which show the link for the required game, but when I click that it goes to the default GOG games page.