Dead Space To Launch Early, Banned in Three Countries

EA Redwood Shores' Dead Space seems to be one of the few games that has its release constantly moved forward. Shortly after news that the game's European debut was moved up to Oct. 24th, the company announced that the US launch date would be moved up to October 14th. Unfortunately, EA's Ben Swanson also said the game has been banned in China, Germany, and Japan. (Announcement here, sound toggle to the upper right of the page.) Previews of the game are available from Ars and Gamespy.

Comments

China and Germany could be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

But Japan? When did the Japanese jump on the censorship protects kids bandwagon?

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Conspicuously absent is Australia.

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[NoobixCube]

Don't worry, the OFLC is just a little slow. It will be banned, I'm sure.

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Wikipedia article:

Previews of the game have universally drawn attention to the high levels of gore and violence in the game, in particular the tactic of 'strategic dismemberment' when battling the Necromorphs. The aliens cannot be subdued by a single shot, rather they have to be incapacitated by shooting off their tentacles and appendages.

Remember, the Japanese take their tentacle porn seriously. It is one thing to show graphic violence with humans. But if you do it with tentacle rapists, you have crossed the line!

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[Corbets]

I am more surprised by Germany. The Germany of today has seemingly been about freedoms.

Well, I don't quite know how to respond to that. As someone living in Germany's southern neighbor, I have to say that I haven't found the Germans to be about "freedoms" in our field at all. Have you followed the recent laws where even having a copy of Wireshark installed your laptop is a crime? I work in IT security, and I go to great pains to ensure that any security tools and documents are thoroughly encrypted so that I can't be charged.

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[arth1]

I think you have the wrong impression of Germany. Quite often, there are special German versions of games because of their stricter regulation. Mostly it's the strong prohibition against displaying any nazi symbols, but there's also laws against showing gratuitous violence.

Which I think is pretty much OK (except for when it prevents historically correct depictions of e.g. planes and uniforms due to the swastika). I find our laws here in the land of the free, which make a nipple or penis a more horrible thing than brain splatter and bloody guts, far harder to understand.

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the correct term would be nips. Please use the correct epithet or you risk looking like a completely backward racist asshole.

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, the OFLC is just a little slow. It will be banned, I'm sure.

I doubt it. The OFLC already gave it MA15+ (RTFA). The only time the OFLC bans something is if a) enough soccer mums complain) or b) it involves lots of drugs, gang membership, prostitution, killing civilians, or murder sprees in general. Actual violence level has rarely been a criteria.

Even then lots of things slip through - Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, Half-Life, various versions of GTA, etc.

Australia ain't some totalitarian regime like China, mate.

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[Toonol]

In the past, Jap was not considered primarily offensive; however, after the events of World War II, the term became derogatory.
br The Germans don't like "Germs", either. Hey, I didn't know!

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[KDR_11k]

Nope, violent games have always been subject to indexing and bans. I'm not sure Dead Space really got banned, could just have gotten indexed (no advertising allowed, includes putting the game on a shelf outside an 18-only area) but console manufacturers block indexed games completely.

Usually it's not just how the violence is depicted but what the context is, if the player is encouraged to be unnecessarily cruel that ups the chance of a block, if killing isn't even necessary to proceed (e.g. in a stealth game) the chance goes down. Having to maim an enemy to kill him certainly won't go down well.

Re:China and Germany could be expected

[neuromanc3r]

No, the gp is wrong.

Distributing and trying to obtain "hacking tools" is a crime. Trouble is, nobody (including the legislators!) have any idea what exactly a "hacking tool" is...

Uh?

[BJH]

I've been seeing this rumor for a couple of days, and as far as I can tell any talk of it being banned in Japan is bollocks. Can anybody post a single source which provides proof of this?

The Japanese rating associations can't ban a game, as their role is advisory only, so it's not them. The government normally only takes an interest in uncensored porn, and even then it's usually the police in an after-the-fact kind of thing where the distributor gets arrested and charged.

This isn't China - there is no central authority that has final say on what may or may not be sold. Customs could possibly block it at import, but even then there would normally be a court case first.

A ban for a game which hasn't even been released yet? I don't think so.

Re:Uh?

[BJH]

Yes, I know, I did actually RTFA.

That's not a source which inspires me with confidence in its accuracy. No official announcement? Nothing in the Japanese media?

Who banned it? Why? Not a word so far.

Hentai and Violent Anime

[ilovesymbian]

Japanese cartoons are full of violence, not to mention Japanese underground rape-porn and other shoddy media. How come Japan has banned this game?

Germany... well they are still in the 1940's trying to make amends for what the nazis did. I won't blame them for trying.

China banning this game? Yawn... so whats new? They ban everthing.

Re:Hentai and Violent Anime

[magus_melchior]

The primary reason is likely the increasing incidents of teenagers killing people, and the increase in conspicuous murders like the infamous massacre in Akihabara this year-- and the couple of copycat murders or attempted murders. So instead of improving the ratio of quality of life to cost, education system, and its directionless (and decidedly GOP-like) government, an agency decided to ban a graphically violent game. Essentially, if the LDP don't have an easy scapegoat, they will have to deal with issues they'd rather not touch.

Today's Japan is very much a reactionary culture, where the old continue to govern by striking down that which they fear without careful consideration of the impact of their decisions. And the next in line can't wait to smack down the younger generation, so the cycle feeds itself.

And the "underground" stuff is technically contraband in Japan, IIRC. At least, I can't imagine an old cop letting an "ura" DVD slide.

Re:Hentai and Violent Anime

[Kreigaffe]

Um, I'm pretty sure Japan's culture being extremely conservative and disapproving of anything different than the status quo is NOT something new.
In fact it's more the whole.. crazy weird kooky stuff.. that's new. That's how Today's Japan is different. The rest? That's just Japan being Japan. They're conservative, they're racist, they're self-conscious, and gosh darn it, people like them.

This story probably isn't accurate

[Scorpinox]

According to this German news site (link : http://www.eurogamer.de/article.php?article_id=230133 ), Andrew Green wasn't correct, and Dead Space has not gone through the German classification system yet.

However, knowing their past, I would be surprised if it did pass classification.

Re:This story probably isn't accurate

[F-3582]

We should worry about the CSU, not the USK ;)

_Banned_ in Germany?

[RichiH]

Never heard of the game, but apparently it did not go through evaluation, yet. Note that there is a difference between 18+, 'harmful to minors' and banned.

* The first can not be sold to anyone under 18
* The second can not be sold openly and you can't run ads for it (which was great marketing, when I was under 18)
* The third can not be sold at all

I highly suspect it is the second.

Re:_Banned_ in Germany?

[RichiH]

s/harmful/dangerous/
s/it is/it will be/ /me bows head in shame

Different culture...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, violence is to Germans what sex is to Americans.

Re:Different culture...

[ozphx]

As in they are famous for starting off a lot of it, but turned out not to be as good at it as they thought?

Why the Violence?

[flnca]

Why put so much violence in a game in the first place? There's an abundance of FPS out there. Wouldn't it be better to come up with some smart and witty game concepts?

Re:Why the Violence?

[F-3582]

Why keep people making violent movies? And violent theater plays? Why do people keep composing music without any tonality? Why do people play jazz solos that makes people go crazy and beat each other up?

They do it, because they can and they got a target audience for it! Apparently Dead Space is not for twelve-year-olds. Some right-wing conservatives (and Germany has been ruled by them for many years, unfortunately) seem to love liberalism in economy (neo-liberalism), but not in culture.

publicity stunt

[Tom]

Frankly, I think that's a publicity stunt with the "banned" - for the lack of details.

What exactly do they mean? Makes a world of difference, and they don't tell. Germany does have age ratings, and it does have something they call "indexing", which sounds like "banning", but really isn't. It's just one step up from "18+" in that you also can't display it openly in the store. You absolutely can buy it, legally, with age verification, and quite a few brutal computer games are in that area.
Americans: Think "sex" instead of "violence" and you'll understand. Germans don't mind nude models on magazines, but they do mind blood and gore, i.e. the exact opposite of what the US morals are.

Very few games are actually "banned", and almost all of them because they break a law against the use of Nazi symbols. A law, I should add, that the Allies forced on the newly founded Germany after WW2.

Re:publicity stunt

[grumbel]

Germany does have age ratings, and it does have something they call "indexing", which sounds like "banning", but really isn't.

For consoles "indexing" is pretty close to banning, since neither Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo allow an indexed game to be published in Germany, which means you can't buy a German version of Gears of War in Germany and neither can you download demos or add-ons from XBoxLive or PSN. You might still be able to find a shop that imports the game for you from another country and you might be able to create an XboxLive or PSN account with fake data that puts you in the USA, but that are just workaround to what is effectivly a ban. For PC games its different because there is no central authority that stops you from publishing the titles.

Germans don't mind nude models on magazines,

Germany doesn't have a problem with boobies, but hardcore porn is indexed by default, so freedom when it comes to "sex" isn't exactly there either.

Very few games are actually "banned"

True, but it actually does hit major titles, see Dead Rising.

The real issue with the whole "indexing" and "banning" however is that its really just censorship in disguise. We already have rating agencies that can give a titlel a 18+ rating, its hard to find a reason why one would need restrictions beyond a 18+ rating.

A = A

[RustinHWright]

No, you should pretend you've modded him up if you pretend that he said something clever.