Subject: RE: [Politech] Sony caves to angry Quebeckers over "offensive"videogame [fs]
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 11:07:03 -0500
Thread-Index: AcOdZ36+vYWfEXFZStGK4e3k9vm9SAAAdZbA
From: "Buck Calabro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>This is the first time I've ever heard of >a game publisher pull content because >some group found it objectionable. Go figger.
As non-PC as this is going to sound, I've been a player of historical simulation board games (war games) for over 3 decades. One of the leading publishers of these games was a company called Avalon Hill. WWII was (and remains) a very popular topic. Many of the box covers feature the swastika (on flags or tanks, etc.) I recall that the games got different box covers when sold in Germany: covers which omitted the historically correct (but politically taboo) swastika.
I did a little Googling and couldn't find many hard references to back up my recollection. http://www.kw.igs.net/~tacit/frames/aanda/nova.htm where the following quote originates "<More on the pieces.> To appease mass market sensibilities the Nazi swastika was replaced with the German national cross symbol." Also http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Military-Modeling/message/3105 which mentions the ban on the swastika in Germany.
One might argue that this is a different situation, but I'm just trying to point out that humanity has a long history of censorship. Even in games.
--buck calabro
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 10:20:11 -0600 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Sony caves to angry Quebeckers
> Hey Declan -- > > This is the first time I've ever heard of a game publisher pull content > because some group found it objectionable. Go figger.
It's not the first. Doom had to remove swastikas from its levels to sell the game in Germany.
http://www.rome.ro/lee_killough/memorabilia/swastika.shtml
Lee
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