Normally when you hear that a game's not coming out in Australia it's down to their draconian rating standards. Up until recently the highest age rating that would appear on a box was 15, anything above that wouldn't be permitted a retail release without significant content being removed; some GTAs were outright banned, Left For Dead 2 was edited down to be less graphic, Fallout 3 had to have drug names changed (something that held over into all international versions).
This system was recently changed, the government finally introduced an 18 rating and allows mature titles to be sold, which makes today's news all the more shocking.
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct isn't coming out for Wii U in Australia. Australian Nintendo site Vooks quotes Activision, saying: “As with every game release, publishers decide which platforms to release based on customer demand. Unfortunately it wasn’t there for the Wii U sku on The Walking Dead.”
The metrics for determining a lack of demand haven't been revealled. It's unclear if this means that there wasn't enough interest from consumers through a lack of preorders or through retailers not putting in enough stock requests.
Activision previously spared Australian Wii U owners from having to consider playing 007 Legends by also withholding production of copies for that region. It's entirely possible that choosing not to supply a version of this game suggests a lack of confidence from Activision in the game's sales potential. The game's limited marketing has already raised suspicions that the content may be rushed to coincide with the return of the AMC television show it's based on.
The Walking Dead Survival Instinct will still be available on other platforms. Hopefully this awful precedent doesn't continue.
