Byers said:
Treblaine said:
Byers said:
You just have them classify the shipment as a gift. I do it all the time to get around the archaic toll fees that my government wants. And if they won't ship it to your country due to region issues, just get it from a private seller on ebay. There's really not much of a problem for adults to obtain anything, banned or otherwise, online.
That's good to know but it is only a matter of time before this loophole is closed.
And even if it is possible to get the game in Australia, sales will inevitably be much lower than they could be as it is hardly common knowledge how to get past this ban. There just won't be as many L4D2 players from Australia as there could have been.
Err, no. This is not some kind of loophole that will be closed. If people weren't allowed to send each other gifts without the authorities opening your mail for no apparent reason, that would raise all kinds of moral questions, and you'd basically be living in a police state. They only open shipments if they have reasonable suspicions the contents is illegal in nature or something. I've been shopping this way through the internet for, christ, nearly 15 years, with no problems.
Of course it will impede the sales of the games in that region, since it's not gonna be something you can just go to the supermarket and buy. But if you want it enough, you can get it. You'll have to play with people in a different region than you, but I don't think Left for Dead is too strict about regions. Whenever I play the first one, I encounter people from all over the world.
You think the only way the Authorities could detect this transaction is by physically catch it and open it as it is being delivered?
Err, no. The Australian authorities would not even have to bother with opening a package or even looking at any package at all. The only thing they have to do is serve Amazon or any online retailer with a court order demanding they make available their record keeping of all their sales of certain products to Australia. There are international laws in place for this, every transaction MUST be recorded and Australia has the authority to scrutinies those details with an easy to obtain court order.
That would also extend to gifts and it would not take long to figure out if people are merely buying gifts for them self and it would not take much to make the case in court that these were de-facto sales of un-rated games in Australia = illegal, even if utter bullshit.
If Amazon dicks around or tries to hide information then Australia has every right to block ALL internet access to that online retailer and will likely lead to lawsuits or even criminal prosecution if they try to "obstruct justice".
You just have to face the facts that the only real solution is to change the practices of the Australian Censors, particularly allowing an 18+ rating as there is literally (and I mean literally) zero reason at all for Australia to lack consideration of gamers that are 18 years or older.
