Much hyped zombie game Dead Island has gotten the attention of the ESRB for its logo of all things. Hanging zombies are a no-no, it seems, as the game’s logo has been “censored” to remove that dangling corpse. That change affects the game’s box art in North America only, reports IGN.
Dead Island’s Logo Too Grisly For Americans
Comments
29 responses to “Dead Island’s Logo Too Grisly For Americans”
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TrjnAre we going to bother taking bets on whether this slips through uncensored here in the MA15+ rating?
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StevorooniThe Australian version (if it even makes it here) will probably have to be renamed to ‘Life-Challenged Island’
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weresmurfIm sorry that title has been Refused Classification because it breaches the G8+ rating guidelines…
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weresmurf
lol I’m sorry but that’s hilarious given the flak we just copped from the yanks over the whole MK thing…
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LukeI too find it hilarious… and ironic. Although i doubt the logo would be allowed here too, look at Left 4 Dead 2.
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RodNow that I think about it… hanging a zombie doesn’t really make a whole pile of sense. It’s certainly inefficient!
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weresmurf
Cause he’s dead…
And the pic makes up an island…
And the palm tree’s meant to be on an island…
And he’s dead…
Did I mention the pic makes up an Island?
And that he’s dead? On an Island?
…
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C-macIf the box art is banned in America, what chance do we have in Australia of getting the game!
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Alex Roganhahahaha.
Remove the noose and we have a game about people falling to sleep whilst standing. -
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NatoomanPerhaps you can just remove the man hanging from the tree and keep the noose, though their would not be much use for the crows in the background… Hell, just remove the whole picture cause it’s red, THE COLOUR OF VIOLENCE!!!
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Steven Knight
Taking the context of the whole zombie infection out of it… it IS pretty damned macabre
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JustinThis is why we shouldn’t take things out of context then apply judgements to them.
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Perhaps they could do what they do with adult mags/movies – use a plastic opaque sleeve to cover it … Or, ya know, stop being pussies.
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DigitalusIt actually makes more sense if it’s simply a guy who didn’t want to become a zombie who hanged himself. Seems more plausible than catching a zombie, wrapping a noose around his head then hoisting it up, if you stop to think about it.
Maybe that’s why it’s questionable.
Thinking further, would a palm branch actually hold a full-grown man??
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Stuart Skene
That’s what I saw. What indicates the silhouette is a zombie and not a just some dude.
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Jacob Taylor
I think the reason they have removed the picture of a guy hanging from a tree is pretty simple.
Think for a second of other examples of strange fruit hanging from trees in America. This has unintended racial connotations.
It really pisses me off when people don’t do their cultural research before doing the creative.
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weresmurf
You know they hung mexicans, whites, indians, asians and waaaaaay way more cultures too over the last 150 years as well right?
Some people really gotta start letting go of the past instead of living in it…
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LennieUm, yes. I’m a white Austalian and knew it was a zombie game when I saw the headline but when I look at that silhouette my mind definitely doesn’t fill in zombie details. Or even suicide details.
I don’t know that it’s ban-worthy, but it does seem like a pretty unfortunate design decision.
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Dave ManuelCouldn’t they remove the noose and rename it ‘David Blaine levitates on an Island’?
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warcroftIts definitely banned due to lynching being so widespread in the past.
Well, according to some, white folk use to go around lynching everyone all the time. It was the in thing.And palm leaves arent that strong. Theres no way a palm leaf could carry that weight.
Maybe it was changed due to physics laws? I mean, Americans are pretty intelligent.-
James Howe
Hey bud I’m pretty sure americans aren’t the ones making this. Oh, and not to mention, this is a game about zombies, who cares about whether a palm fern can hold that. Stop being a nerd.
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James Howe
Ok, so firstly, this is not a lynching. This is a hanging man, or zombie. A lyching consists of a hanging person, and then lighting them on fire. Does anyone see fire? Whoooooray for history. So no lyching.
No one got there panties in a bunch when the soldier was hanging in shi no numa on call of duty: world at war, so why does anyone care about this? This is a mere silhouette of someone hanging from a tree, there isn’t anything to convey here. Everyone’s trying to make guesses as to what the reason was as to why they would choose that, why did valve choose a hand for left for dead? Not because the game was mainly about hands and thumbs that either are or are not there, but because it fits with what they’re doing! They have a tree, they have a person, assuming a zombie, hanging firm the tree. That’s it. Seriously, if this is so much of a problem then you shouldn’t be buying games that have dismemberment in them like this, left for dead, dead rising, call of duty, and yes, because the zombies explode, dead space, god of war, pretty much every game out now. You see a hand without a thumb in the box cover, you think “oh, that looks great, I’m going to see if it’s about hands.” but you see this and you think “racism, there’s a guy hanging from a tree, racism. This is trashy, shouldn’t be shown on shelves, it’s not appealing blah blah blah.” seeing something like this on the shelves would definitely question whether or not I would buy this for my 13 year old son. But it’s fine, he’s got call if duty black ops and god of war 3 and all the other games that are just as, if not more violent then this cover art. Jesus, you people are trying so hard to point out flaws, this cover it great! It’s original and completely unexpected, going in a direction that I don’t think anyone would have seen.
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