| Joel Sassone |
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Sucks to live in China.
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| Locust Cong |
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@Joel, do you have any idea living in China? We probably get the kincent earlier than you do.
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| Maurício Gomes |
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@Joel
It suck to live in Brazil, where it is not prohibited, but taxed 273% (so a PS3 slim for example is 700 USD Sony store sells PS2 for 400 USD) |
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| Fiore Iantosca |
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Long live the USA
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| Fiore Iantosca |
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@Locust
Yah you will get it before us, but enjoy the censorship in that country. |
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| Mark Harris |
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I think Joel is talking about the rather loose Rule of Law apparent in the grey market and the lack of legally operating channels of product distribution.
It's not just about the access to a product, it's about HOW you access that product. |
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| Mark Harris |
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It's a cultural thing not a government thing, and it's slowly getting better. It takes a while to loosen up a country founded by Puritans, bro! :-)
Might want to keep an eye out for other countries too, there have been "violent game" rumblings over in the UK lately. To me that is more malicious, since it's based on government control of produced material rather than societal values pushing out "objectionable" content through commercial retailers. Either way I don't see why we should be censoring product development on any front. This industry self policies better than any other as far as keeping content away from minors and somehow still seems to get away with less risque content. But whatev, we've beat that horse to death so many times it should be a statistic in Red Dead. |
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| Ken Kinnison |
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US tends to allow the violence but not sexual content- even if it complains about it though doesn't it?
Every country has their 'overall' view, aus and germany make the US look bloodthirsty in comparison as I understand it. (Several games have the human innocents replaced with zombies and etc). Either way I'd prefer 'censorship' to be in the hands of the consumer. What I choose to bring in my home is my choice, and frankly games are still 'expensive enough' that its reasonable to assume the parent provides the money. (Although if my kid scraped together 60 bucks from doing chores- I'd be proud of her... also though, i don't live in constant fear of the 'nasty effects' games would have on kids...) Also, don't take anyones country comments too seriously, most of them are light hearted methinks... |
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| Mark Harris |
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On these boards things tend to stay pretty professional.
But yeah, you're right, normally EU and AUS are more lenient with nudity/sexuality while the US is more lenient with violence, nothing is okay in China and pretty much anything goes in Japan. Question for the Canadians and Central/South Americans, what's the general atmosphere in your respective regions? |
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| Dave Smith |
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well if anyone actually read the article, its about China and their ridiculous ban on video game equipment, not censorship of sex or violence.
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| Dave Smith |
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huh?
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| Mark Harris |
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@ Dave : I think we started out commenting on the article in the first few posts and then we got carried away and ended up off topic... so we're back! I'm with you, the ban on video game equipment is absurd, antiquated, and divorced from the reality of the actual appearance of hardware in Chinese households.
@ Christian : That's an interesting anecdote about the acceptance of fantasy violence. I didn't realize that those games received such harsh judgment. I never even thought about it, to tell the truth, so thanks for passing along that info. Food for thought! Also, good point about the Rapelay situation. Japan is normally so insular, but the international outcry seemed to force their hand in banning that game. I have always respected the Japanese' ability to divorce actual societal impact from media and their incredibly open and accepting attitude about artistic freedom and expression. |
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| Daniel Green |
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Hi guys. I'm an Australian and I just wanted to update you all on ourcurrentpolicies.
Firstly wedontcurrently have an R18+ for our games industry. We have K-kids G8+ PG13+ M15+(parental supervision) MA15+ We recently had a public inquiry to which EB Games and Game hosted petitions and rwcieved overwhelming support for this. However due to theoverwhelming response the Standing Committee of Attornies General and the government are backtracking and seeking opinions from non gamers and organisations. Clearly it's in everybodys bestinterest for jato achieve this raring. As things stand alot of games that are borderline MA/R are classified as MA so some games that are better suited to adults are available to 15yo. On the other hN |
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| Daniel Green |
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On the other hand those that are deemed unclassified are changed (L4D2 isthe most well known recent game with disappearing bodies immediately less blood and body hacking etc also if we play on other countries servers then the games we join are forced to use ourdummed down version)
A legal and usually cost effective way for us to acquire uncensored games is to import them from the UK as we also use the PAL system here, or alot of people knowdownload them illegally. Hope this has helped. And please vote R18+ for games. Other entertainment industries have it - we should too. PS: Sorry for spelling and grammar. iPhones are difficult. |
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| Sean Parton |
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@ Mark Harris: Up here in Canada, I think it's largely the same idea as down in the states. I think it has less to do with our demeanor (which I'd call fairly laid back, in a way), but that I think most companies treat those subjects the same between us. We're similar enough but a tenth of the size... probably doesn't warrant much of a different approach.
That said, two of the largest provinces in the country host significant game development studios (examples: Ubisoft in Quebec and Electronic Arts Canada in British Columbia). I think them and the Canadian equivalents to many of the video game-related organizations in the US do a good job of keeping on top of things and lobbying as appropriate to keep overly silly things from going down (like the sort of blocking of hardware/software that China seems to be doing, or what some of the US states are trying to do to ban certain video games). |
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| Mark Harris |
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Thanks for the responses, guys, it's nice to get an update on cultural sensitivities every now and then straight from the source!
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| Ken Kinnison |
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I know still a bit off topic (If only vaguely related)... I wonder what the 'limit' on censorship should ultimately be... theres a certain threshold that 'should' be maintained. (Admittedly my personal opinion but I feel like 90+% of the world supports this concept).
My question is- why aren't games subject to the same levels as movies? IS it the same as movies anywhere? Are movie ratings a serious deviation anywhere else in the world? IE is Saw or Hostel banned in Aus or Germany? |
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| Mark Harris |
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Yeah I never heard any follow ups, I just assumed that they fast tracked the law so the rest of the world would shut up and leave them alone. Regardless of an official ban or not, the outcry certainly had enough of a chilling effect to get the game pulled from distribution.
I'm glad that an official law never went into effect. |
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| Ken Kinnison |
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Two words...
Redneck.... Zombies.... |
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