Different Country, Different Game Content

Thanks to EvilAvatar for finding a registration-not-required (via NPR) version of a LA Times article about changing game content for different cultures. As the article describes, "Red blood in a game sold in the United States turns green in Australia. A topless character in a European title acquires a bikini in the U.S. Human enemies in a U.S. game morph into robots in Germany. Violent sex scenes in a Japanese game disappear in the American version." There's also discussion of localizing for cultural reasons, citing Animal Crossing, which has added "..folding lawn chairs, inflatable wading pools, tiki torches and pink flamingos" for the US version.

Comments

Re:Would that explain?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair to Animal Crossing, the addition of pink flamingoes etc. wasn't intended to make it marketable to an American audience as much as it was simply to provide more options for decorating your character's house. They made several other gameplay-related changes to the US version, presumably reflecting changes they would have made to the Japanese version if they had the time. Sometimes it just happens. Look at Splinter Cell; the PS2 and Gamecube versions have more 'stuff' in them than the Xbox version, mostly just because of the six extra months (and maybe some player feedback) they had between releases.

Cross-cultural changes like removing swastikas, blood, nudity, or what-have-you are one thing. Adding flamingoes or lawnchairs are something else entirely. Let's not paint them with the same brush.

Re:Green blood?

[NanoGator]

" but why does red blood in America turn green in Australia? Have our neighbors down under become infested with Klingons?"

That was a VERY clever troll intended to lure out the Star Trek fanatics. Kudos!