So Dead Space Was Banned, Well, Nowhere

In September, something smelled fishy. EA went out of their way to say that Dead Space had been “banned” in Germany, Japan and China, when really, nothing of the sort had transpired.

It wasn’t announced in a “well, that sucks” fashion, like such things normally are. After all, bans result in unhappy customers and a loss in revenue. No, it was announced like this: “Hey, kids, this game is SO BADASS it got BANNED in a buncha places!”

GamePolitics got on the case then, and are still on the case now, reporting that, contrary to EA’s statements, the game was never banned. Not in Germany, not in China, not in Japan.

In Germany, it’s freely available. In Japan, it was freely available, and the game even had demo units in some stores. As for China, EA don’t even officially sell boxed products there, and soon after the original statement changed “China” to “Korea”.

So what gives? Seems that, like Gears of War 2, it’s part of 2008’s stupidest marketing ploy. PR types, do make sure not doing this again is at the top of your new year’s resolutions.

EA: Dead Space Wasn’t Banned in Germany, After All [Game Politics]