This time, I will be sharing a news article about games that their contents have had conflicts with culture from various places. This article is from IGN website by Craig Pearson.
Here is the link - http://games.ign.com/articles/122/1223127p1.html
Eventhough games' story lines, characters, and settings are interesting, it is very hard for developers to both avoid the culture conflict with specific places and developing a good piece of art. There are games that some of its contents are conflicting with culture or belief of groups of people, which results in developers have to remove or alter the conflicting contents for the games to be sold in the conflicting areas. These are some of the games that have conflicts with certain places. I have chosen only some of the games from the original article that are interesting.
The very first example of games that their contents has been altered is the well-known Fallout 3. Towards the end of one of the side-quests, you are required to trigger a nuke and destroy the entire city, leaving an irradiated ruin behind. This seems like a good way to loose karma and benefits to those playing as a bad person, however, Japan did not like this issue. Japanese required the publisher, Bethesda, to remove the mission before it was allowed to be published in Japan. Also, one of the game's weapon, the Fat Man, was censored by the Japanese. Fat Man is a mini nuke launcher which its original name mimics the nuclear detonator that United States detonated on Nagasaki in World War II.
The second example is the game called Team Fortress 2, developed by Valve. The game mainly consists of multiplayer battles with violence actions and scenes, such as rocket death, head lopping, etc. This has caused the German censors to require the developer to remove these scenes before being able to publish in Germany. However, instead of properly remove scenes, Valve, naughtily, decided to replace the bloodied scenes with funny toys and springs falling out out the dead bodies.
The third example is the game called Left 4 Dead 2, also developed by Valve. The game is about zombie-crisis survivors that have to fight through bloodied zombies to survive. The problem for UK was not the bloodied part, it was the cover image of the game. The first Left 4 Dead's cover for UK was not a problem, since to emphasize the "4" of the title, which means the four characters that the player gets to play as, the cover image is the hand with the thumb cut off to show four fingers. However this time, to emphasize the come back of the second game or "2", the cover image is the same hand with two fingers folded, leaving two fingers. Here was the problem, the hand showing off two fingers is colloquially known as "the vicky", which is very offensive to people in UK; this result in UK required the developer to change the cover. Valve, then, again naughtily, switched the hand around showing the peace sign in UK version cover.
The last example is the well-known game for violence, GTA: San Andreas, developed by Rockstar Games. In the game, there was scene with a mini game where the player have to control the character as he switches his sexual positions with his girlfriend. This mini game was hidden within the code, which can only be unlocked through modifications. Following rumors about this mini game, the American rating board, ESRB, investigated the game and, after discovered the mini game, re-rated the game from M(mature) to AO(adults only). This resulted in Rockstar Games releasing a patch which removed this part of the game.
W - 611
Here is the link - http://games.ign.com/articles/122/1223127p1.html
Eventhough games' story lines, characters, and settings are interesting, it is very hard for developers to both avoid the culture conflict with specific places and developing a good piece of art. There are games that some of its contents are conflicting with culture or belief of groups of people, which results in developers have to remove or alter the conflicting contents for the games to be sold in the conflicting areas. These are some of the games that have conflicts with certain places. I have chosen only some of the games from the original article that are interesting.
The second example is the game called Team Fortress 2, developed by Valve. The game mainly consists of multiplayer battles with violence actions and scenes, such as rocket death, head lopping, etc. This has caused the German censors to require the developer to remove these scenes before being able to publish in Germany. However, instead of properly remove scenes, Valve, naughtily, decided to replace the bloodied scenes with funny toys and springs falling out out the dead bodies.The third example is the game called Left 4 Dead 2, also developed by Valve. The game is about zombie-crisis survivors that have to fight through bloodied zombies to survive. The problem for UK was not the bloodied part, it was the cover image of the game. The first Left 4 Dead's cover for UK was not a problem, since to emphasize the "4" of the title, which means the four characters that the player gets to play as, the cover image is the hand with the thumb cut off to show four fingers. However this time, to emphasize the come back of the second game or "2", the cover image is the same hand with two fingers folded, leaving two fingers. Here was the problem, the hand showing off two fingers is colloquially known as "the vicky", which is very offensive to people in UK; this result in UK required the developer to change the cover. Valve, then, again naughtily, switched the hand around showing the peace sign in UK version cover.
The last example is the well-known game for violence, GTA: San Andreas, developed by Rockstar Games. In the game, there was scene with a mini game where the player have to control the character as he switches his sexual positions with his girlfriend. This mini game was hidden within the code, which can only be unlocked through modifications. Following rumors about this mini game, the American rating board, ESRB, investigated the game and, after discovered the mini game, re-rated the game from M(mature) to AO(adults only). This resulted in Rockstar Games releasing a patch which removed this part of the game.
W - 611
These all seem rather mild errors. I thought there had been issues with stereotyping of middle easterners as terrorists. Is that true I wonder. Good article choice.
ReplyDelete