Thailand, which has been ruled by a military dictatorship for the past few months, has banned the video game Tropico 5 from appearing in stores, saying “some contents of the game are not appropriate for the current situation,” according to publisher Kalypso Media.
Tropico 5, of course, is a video game in which you can play as a military dictator, building and running your very own country in as sadistic a fashion as you’d like. In May, soldiers launched a successful coup against Thailand, installing a military junta government that persists today.
“We are disappointed to hear that Tropico 5 will not be released in Thailand,” said Kalypso’s Simon Hellwig in a press release.”Tropico 3 and 4 both enjoyed successful releases in the country and although the Tropico brand does have a realistic political element to it, the scenarios and content are all delivered with a certain trademark tongue in cheek humour.”
And here’s Kalypso’s Stefan Marcinek, also via press release: “Our distributor has been working hard to gain approval for the release, but it seems that the Board of Film and Video Censors deem some of the content too controversial for their consumers. This does sound like it could have come from one of El Presidente’s own edicts from the game.”
Tropico 5 came out on May 23 — a day after Thailand’s coup — for PC. Mac, Linux, 360 and PS4 versions are planned for later this year.
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