Australia's ratings board issued an RC classification for Left 4 Dead 2. RC means "refused classification", which is the equivalent of giving a movie an X-rating in the US, and it means retails stores won't carry the game. But Australians love videogames and there are scads of them who want to give Valve money for Left 4 Dead 2. So Valve will probably work something out. For instance, Bethesda had to change the names of certain drugs in Fallout 3 to get around Australia's ratings board.

But what I found most interesting was the following comment in the ratings board's decision (available here as a PDF):

The game contains realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence which is inflicted upon "the Infected" who are living humans infected with a rabies-like virus that causes them to act violently.

Would the game have been classified differently if Valve had been more careful with their zombie mythology? Since the Infected aren't dead, since they're simply sick, there's a much different moral quandary when it comes to killing them. It's a whole different kind of violence!

So on one hand, it's too bad Australians are going to have to play some sort of modified version of the game. Maybe Valve can introduce some backstory where getting infected means dying first before chasing after survivors. But on the other hand, I'm glad to see the Australian ratings boards are hip to the details when it comes to zombie mythology!

By the way, the judgment goes into a lot more detail about the explicit nature of the game's violence leading to the RC. They aren't simply hung up on the zombie/not-zombie issue. But the same board gave the original Left 4 Dead a 15+ rating.

(Thanks Xeorn and checkers!)