Fallout 3’ effective ban from sales in Australia is text book example of how games should not be treated by censors. The Office of Film and Literature Classification in Australia, known as the OFLC, only charged with rating games because the politicians could not tell that the new medium of expression has rather different rules from literature and film, has already made some victims, with the likes of Manhunt and GTA: San Andreas being barred from selling in the Land Down Under.

It seems that with Fallout 3, developed by Bethesda, the reason for refusal of classification, which basically means that the game cannot be sold legally, was the fact that it references the use of a real world drug, morphine, as a way for the player to recover from injuries sustained in the fighting that takes place in the game world. Australia has rather strict rules regarding possible drug consumption promotion, so it decided that a game which shows a positive side to morphine should not be sold in the country.

Now, according to reports from various retailers (which have not been officially confirmed or denied), Bethesda chose to remove all references to morphine and replace them with a made up drug with the same effects. It seems that the trick will be enough to get an MA 15+ rating from the OFLC. But the re-evaluation process for the game will take time, so the release date might be pushed back by a couple of weeks.

There are sites which are currently listing the Australian launch of Fallout 3 on October 15, nearly two whole weeks after the European release date. The game is expected to arrive on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.