Dead Space Banned All Over The Place

[Sol Invictus]

I was cruising along the news sites today and picked this one up. Apparently Ve3tro (not to be confused with VE3D) is reporting that Dead Space's release date has been pushed up to October 14th (woot!) but that it's also been outright banned in Germany, Japan and China (fuck!)

I don’t know if you heard but Dead Space is now hitting stores on October 14th! Weird, huh, we moved it in another week. The team is simply amazing that they were actually able to pull the date in. Some other crazy news I just got that isn’t exactly good news is that Dead Space was banned from being sold (yes outright banned, this time I’m correct) in Japan, Germany, and China! Man…

What the hell? I just hope this isn't true, but if it is, I don't understand why. It isn't any more violent than BioShock and FEAR, and it sure as hell doesn't approach the level of 'random violence' as Grand Theft Auto IV or Manhunt. Not that I think those games need to be banned either, because they don't. Thailand's just banned the hell out of every GTA game and a lot of other countries are following in their footsteps.

Yeah, let's blame games for all this violence and shit while movies like Hostel get shown freely at every theater.

[Roy Ziegler]

Originally Posted by Sol Invictus

It isn't any more violent than BioShock and FEAR, and it sure as hell doesn't approach the level of 'random violence' as Grand Theft Auto IV or Manhunt.

Huh? Isn't the main feature of the game how you can dismember enemies?

[Chris Nahr]

What's the real source of these news? Where are the statements from the publisher and/or from the censorship boards in each region?

[Sol Invictus]

Originally Posted by usedpilot

Huh? Isn't the main feature of the game how you can dismember enemies?

Yeah, but I don't see what the big deal is? You can set people on fire, sting them to death with deadly bees, electrocute and even shatter them in Bioshock.

[Sol Invictus]

Originally Posted by Chris Nahr

What's the real source of these news? Where are the statements from the publisher and/or from the censorship boards in each region?

See, that's the thing. I have no idea. I'd like some confirmation on that.

[intruder]

For Germany:
According to Gamestar's website EA denied that this rumor is based on facts.
They plan to release a press statement soon to clear things up.
Germany will not "ban" anything before they have a version of the game up for review and that didn't happen yet.

The possible reason for a "ban" in Germany might be that EA will not release a "cut" version here. German officials will have problems with the "dismemberment" but since it's a vital part of the gameplay it might not be possible to cut the game that way without screwing it up totally.
Maybe that's how the "ban" rumors started.

Edit: This seems to be the origin of the news:
http://www.destructoid.com/dead-spac...s-102501.phtml

We've also been told by Dead Space community manager Andrew Green that the title has been completely banned from the following countries: Germany, Japan, and China. That's right, there's just too much survival and way too much horror in Dead Space for these countries to handle. No word on whether EA has any plans to alter the game for a future release in those territories.

[intruder]

Update for Germany:

Gamestar reports now that EA says it's not true.
The German officials are still reviewing the build given by EA.

[Chris Nahr]

Thanks for the investigation. Looks like some doofus tried to generate extra publicity for the game in America. "It's so awesome it's BANNED!!1!"

[Sol Invictus]

I honestly hope it doesn't get banned, or cut, or whatever. It's looking like too good a game for that kind of shit to happen to it.

[RobotPants]

I really hope this game turns about to be as cool as it looks in the videos I've seen of it.

[BacteriaEP]

Does anybody else find it ironic that the biggest (soon to be two biggest) video game convention in Europe is hosted in one of the most video game hostile countries?

Just a thought.

[Aszurom]

This would explain the infomercial I saw at 3am last night...

Order now! SPACE ZOMBIES GONE WILD: Too Hot For Germany Edition.

HOT uncensored space zombie action.

Woooooooo!

These zombies are far too wild for Germany.

OH YEAH! BABY!

They're too HOT for Japan!

Ohhhhh... yes!

And don't even THINK about... CHINA!

Operators are standing by. If you order Space Zombies Gone Wild in the next 30 seconds, we'll also send you Naughty Zombies 2, Bikini Zombies Gone Wild, and a 3-issue trial subscription to PlayDead.

Space Zombies Gone Wild... it's TOO HOT for it's own good!

[RobotPants]

Space zombies are cold, silly.

[uddi]

The way the German ratings board works, they won't ever 'ban' anything until it's on the shelf. But if you work with them, you can get a pretty clear idea of what's going to happen, so even if it's not technically banned yet, it could be clear to everyone that it's destined for a ban. Theoretically - I know nothing about this title in specific.

[Hanacker]

I had no idea Japan was into banning games. Censoring porn, yes, but I didn't know they had a problem with animated violence.

[MSUSteve]

You can't trust a country that censors out pubic hair.

[Aszurom]

Yeah, I never quite got the "Demonic tentacle rape A-OK!" but there's a ban on pubes.

[bigdruid]

Hmmm. Dismembering opponents is a "vital" part of this game? I can't tell if that makes this an instant sale or a no sale for me. I haven't played a "dismember your opponents" game since The Bilestoad...

[intruder]

Originally Posted by MSUSteve

You can't trust a country that censors out pubic hair.

I don't trust a society that bans nipples.

[RobotPants]

Someone banned nipples? Should I be hiding out or something? That seems rather painful.

[Chris Nahr]

Unsurprisingly, the clown "journalists" at Edge Online and Gamasutra immediately reprinted this unsubstantiated rumor without waiting for confirmation. Apparently nobody even blinked at the strangeness of how something can have been "banned" that has not even been published.

[flyinj]

The Japan ban definitely has something to do with the ability to dismember fingers. It's a huge faux paus in their culture to show dismemberment of fingers. Something to do with the yakuza.

Back when the Xbox came out, we were working on a launch title. It involved cartoon characters with four fingers. Japanese localization forced us to remodel every single character in the game with five fingers (four fingers plus thumb) or we couldn't release the game in their region.

This resulted in a huge effort on our part to re-model every character when we were already done with the game. It also presented an even bigger problem because we had several pre-rendered cutscenes showing the characters with four fingers. We couldn't re-render these scenes, and we actually had to put a blur filter over the hands of the characters in the cutscenes to get it to pass Japanese certification.

It was by far the most bizarre localization I've ever dealt with.

It's also odd because all Disney characters only have four fingers, and they seem to market just fine in Japan. Do they make Disney put five fingers on all product being sold in Japan? I never really looked into that.

[Damien Neil]

Cutting off a finger is a traditional Yakuza punishment, but I've never before heard of a four-fingered cartoon character being a problem in Japan. That's truly odd.

Disney characters have three fingers in Japan, same as everywhere else. (example)

I completely disbelieve in dismemberment of fingers in a horror game being taboo. Japan has no problem with graphic violence, and plenty of manga and movies that contain yakuza, finger dismemberment and all.

[flyinj]

Well, I didn't dream the whole three month post submission nightmare we went through.

Japan also censored the hell out of all dismemberments in Dead Rising as well:

http://www.qj.net/Dead-Rising-Censor...g/49/aid/61103

[Bob Violence]

The Japanese ratings board has a pretty low tolerance for graphic violence -- dismemberment and decapitation is almost completely disallowed, especially on humans, and even a significant amount of blood can push you into adults-only territory. Stuff that seems relatively tame here (like Resistance, which was bloody but not especially gory) gets cut for violence in Japan.

[Aszurom]

I wonder if Kill Bill was G-rated in their theaters after they got done cutting out all the dismemberment. Also, 10 minutes long.

[Damien Neil]

Huh. I had no idea the Japanese games ratings board was so strict on graphic violence. (Although a blanket ban on dismemberment makes more sense to me than a finger-specific one.)

I've seen plenty of dismemberment in manga that you can buy at any 7-11 in Japan, so it's definitely not a restriction that applies outside of games.

[Sol Invictus]

And China has a ban on skeletons. Not sure what the deal is (probably something to do with ancestor worship), but even games like WOW have all their skeletons in WOW fully fleshed out.