GTA IV censored?

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series has long had a patchy relationship with Australian censors, with previous games in the series falling afoul of the nation's peak ratings body, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). Both Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for example, had to be pulled off shelves for a brief period after public complaints, the latter to do with the infamous Hot Coffee mod. After some content changes, both games eventually made it back onto Australian stores.

Now some media outlets are reporting that Rockstar has taken the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV through some preemptive content changes in order to successfully guide it past the OFLC. The Screenplay blog is reporting that Rockstar reps have confirmed that the version of Grand Theft Auto IV submitted to the OFLC for classification was a "special" modified version to ensure it received an MA15+ rating, the highest available for a game in Australia. Other forms of media, such as film, have the higher R18+ rating which can be applied to content suitable only for adults.