'Disco Elysium' video game made by Estonians refused classification in Australia

TALLINN – The Australian classification board said on Friday last week that the video game "Disco Elysium", created by the Estonian studio ZA/UM, cannot be sold there for moral reasons, the Estonian daily Postimees writes.

According to the decision of the organization, the game is classified as computer games 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", The Guardian writes.

The Australian classification board is an organization that classifies works of art, that is books, films, video games, and so on, according to moral standards.

On March 30, the game will receive an additional package, "The Final Cut", which will add new features, additional voice acting and enhance the gaming experience.

According to The Guardian, the game has been available in Australia for two years through the Steam online games store, but the game’s developers, ZA/UM planned to launch the game on consoles this month, meaning before it could be sold in stores in Australia, it had to go to the classification board for review.

After its release, the game received numerous awards -- Game Awards 2019, for example, rated it as the game with the best narrative, the best independent game, the best role-playing game and the most fresh indie game. The game has been praised by both critics and players.

The producer of the game is Kaur Kender, its creators Robert Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov received the Young Cultural Figure Award for the game last year.