Posts Tagged ‘censorship’
Australian Borderlands gets censored, 2K working to remedy
It’s no secret that the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification is pretty strict when it comes to rating games considering their highest rating is MA15+ so the fact that they have turned their heads to Borderlands is no surprise.
Of course, the game isn’t actually set to hit Steam until October 30th but Australian gamers who were able to get their hands on a copy prior to its release date have found several instances of censorship. Now, this is all fine and dandy considering is it Australia but according to 2k Games, this wasn’t supposed to happen.
Luckily, the studio is working to get the actual uncensored version onto Steam and ready for its October 30th release date so Australian fans of blood and gore need not fret.
Damn, Nintendo censors a swear word in Metroid Prime Trilogy
Nintendo has actually gone ahead and censored the dialog of Admiral Dane in the new Metroid Prime Trilogy. In the original Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the Admiral says “Damn!”, while in Trilogy, he says a whole-hearted “No!”.
It’s a very minor change, and I’m not the least bit affected by it, but it’s interesting to see what is censor-worthy in Nintendo of America’s eyes.
via GoNintendo
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut ships
Atari’s RPG The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut has shipped today to North American retailers. It’s basically the same thing as the original Enhanced Edition released one year ago, except without the nudity censorship made for the US release. Any Europeans who are planning to import have no need to do so.
A patch enables this nudity for all you perverts out there, so it’s you can have had all along in the first place.
The patch is at around ~300MB and can be downloaded from GamersHell.
Reznor Rants Against App Store Censorship
Recently the inevitable issue of censorship came up regarding the App Store, Apple’s online distribution platform for tools, games and various applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. A baby shaking game was pulled after some public outcry, but Trent Reznor’s band Nine Inch Nails submitted an official band application which was rejected.
The application was designed to allow fans of the band to access the forums from their mobile devices, locate other fans via the GPS and upload their own NIN photos, but Apple said no because the app contained ‘objectionable content’ from the 1994 Downward Spiral album.
Mr. Reznor was upset of course, citing the hypocrisy inherent in the fact that a free application can be rejected while the album is available for purchase from the iTunes store, comparing Apple to Wal-mart who while refusing to sell music with profanity still sells films and video games with similar content and yet more objectionable content.
While Apple does have every right to police their own marketplace, it would be advisable for them to create some rating system or rubric of content that they’ll accept and reject, since a reactive approach to censorship is likely to be incredibly inconsistent.
iPhone Baby Shaking Game Causes Controversy
Browsing through the Apple app store can be a bit tedious when looking for quality content. Many companies have jumped on the popularity of the portable device by releasing floods of cheap games that are simply knock-offs of flash games or other iPhone games. Generally they utilize either a touch screen interface, tilt controls or a combination of the two, but a few games have utilized a shaking option, one of which has stirred up a hornets nest of controversy.
The game has you shaking your iPhone (or iPod Touch) in order to quiet a crying baby, an act which if carried out in real life would result in death or severe injury. As you might expect as soon as people got wind of this a fair amount of stink was raised. Apple has since pulled the application from the store after the waves of criticism from various baby shaking prevention groups.
This has since raised other controversies, including a New York Times blogger who raises the question of how far Apple will take their censorship. Unfortunately while I agree that Apple should limit censorship to truly tastelessly offensive materials the fact remains that the app store is owned and run by Apple, giving them not only the ability but the right to censor or ban any content they wish. The big question that arises out of all of this is whether or not Apple would be so quick to pull something that was generating a much larger revenue stream.
Xbox Live May Get Voice Censoring
Most gamers complain of voice chat abuse on Xbox Live, but those complains may be coming to an end, as Microsoft has been granted a patent for real-time censoring in voice communications.
The company had applied for a patent on an “automatic censoring filter” way back in 2004. The technology will see speech-recognition software scan for what is being said in real-time and distort the audio stream if it becomes probable that the user will blurt out obscenity.
While the software is not exclusive to Xbox 360 – neither was it suggested – but the gaming community is speculating that it might be applied on Xbox Live.
It would be interested to see if it really works. And it will be a godsend for those tired of stupid 13-year olds on Xbox Live screaming out racial epithets during epic Halo 3 matches.