censorship
News

Trolling Will Soon Be Illegal In Arizona

One of the Internet’s basic tenets — the right to be as much of a myopic, infantile asshat as humanly possible — is currently under attack in Arizona. A sweeping update to the state’s telecommunications harrasment bill could make naughty, angry words a class 1 misdemeanour — or worse.

March 30, 2012
PlayStation

The Silly Bulls*** Of Censored Soundtracks In Sports Video Games

Sports video games must licence everything. League symbols, player likenesses, individual events, even certain stadiums. Then they must provide a soundtrack every year and, yep, those songs must be licensed, too. It is a neverending headache unique to the sports genre.

February 24, 2012
Xbox

Gamer’s Last Name Deemed Obscene By Xbox Live Cops

A gamer says his handle has been censored by Xbox Live because it seems too much like a slang word — even though it’s his last name.

November 30, 2011
In Real Life

Germany Gets Around To Banning Dead Island

Zombie paradise action game Dead Island may have been out since early September, but it’s only now that the Germans at the wonderfully-named Federal Department of Media Harmful to Young Persons have got around to banning it.

August 25, 2011
In Real Life

Wolfenstein Game Yanked From European Markets Over Swastikas

The iOS version of id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D has been withdrawn from sale in two European countries over its use of the Nazi swastika.

June 25, 2011
News

American Faces Prison For Bringing Manga To Canada On Laptop

If you’re travelling to Canada, a country whose customs officials are notorious for playing the role of morality police, you’d better leave your Japanese comics at home – whether they’re in print or digital.

May 31, 2011
News

The Absurdity Of International Game Ratings

Different cultures have different tastes. That’s a given, and will always result in slight differences in game ratings. But what’s just happened to 3DS game Dead or Alive: Dimensions is too strange to overlook.

May 13, 2011
News

How Working At The ESRB Can Be The Best Job In The World

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board used to manually assess the content of the games it was awarding a classification to. Now, computers do most of the work. Which must be a bummer to anyone hoping to get a job there.

May 1, 2011
News

Fatalities Are OK In Mortal Kombat. Finger Banging, No.

Someone hacked apart the config file data for Mortal Kombat on the PS3 and in addition to discovering about 17 on-disc DLC character skins – and, weirdly, a dummy support-string for Kinect, they found hundreds of wirdy-dirds banned from text communication in MK’s online play.

March 2, 2011
In Real Life

Censorship Has Never Looked So Good

The Chinese government dictates what can and can’t be shown in overhead photographs. This is bad news for Google Maps, which continues to have run-ins with the Mainland. No worries, there is a solution. A beautiful one.

Subscribe Contact