Game Reviews Index
Regardless of how "liberal" you may think America is, we’re still downright Puritan when it comes to many parts of the world. For example, if you want to see nudity on television you’re going to have to either wait for the wee hours of the morning or get yourself one of those pay movie channels that specialize in that sort of thing. In Europe and Japan however, nudity isn’t such a big deal, and it’s not all that uncommon to see at least one naked person on prime-time TV.
Drug use is a different story. Here in the US, you can’t very well turn on a cop drama or crime show without seeing someone snorting, shooting up, or otherwise ingesting illicit substances. That same sort of thing is off-limits in Australia, where portaying drug use is a big no-no.
The same issues hold true for videogames, and now the folks at Bethesda are ready to unburden themselves with their tales of woe about trying to get Fallout 3 approved in all regions, and how varying international censorship rules caused them no end of headaches. We’ll let Pete Hines break it down for you:
"The frustrating thing for us is that the standards and rules can be so varied across territories, that we work with five or six ratings agencies and each one has different ’hot buttons’.
"In one place nudity is a big deal but violence is fine, and in another place drugs are a problem but nudity is fine.
"I guess that’s the way of the world - not every country is the same. You’re not aiming at one target, you’re aiming at six different ones, worrying about how each one will feel about different things.
"We just go through and make the game that we want to make," he said. "We have our eyes wide open, mindful of the things that could be flagged up and how we’re going to resolve them if that becomes a problem."
Sounds like about the only approach that can work with a non-unified model, just throw all your offensive content in there and cut out the parts that specific regions won’t allow. Unfortunately, as Hines suggests, there’s really no way around this, as the only other option would be a worldwide ratings board, but that would never work. Cultures are too varied and sensibilities too different for us to ever agree on one set of "video game morals" to apply to everyone. It may be frustrating Pete, but I guess it’s the best we can do.
Drug use is a different story. Here in the US, you can’t very well turn on a cop drama or crime show without seeing someone snorting, shooting up, or otherwise ingesting illicit substances. That same sort of thing is off-limits in Australia, where portaying drug use is a big no-no.
The same issues hold true for videogames, and now the folks at Bethesda are ready to unburden themselves with their tales of woe about trying to get Fallout 3 approved in all regions, and how varying international censorship rules caused them no end of headaches. We’ll let Pete Hines break it down for you:
"The frustrating thing for us is that the standards and rules can be so varied across territories, that we work with five or six ratings agencies and each one has different ’hot buttons’.
"In one place nudity is a big deal but violence is fine, and in another place drugs are a problem but nudity is fine.
"I guess that’s the way of the world - not every country is the same. You’re not aiming at one target, you’re aiming at six different ones, worrying about how each one will feel about different things.
"We just go through and make the game that we want to make," he said. "We have our eyes wide open, mindful of the things that could be flagged up and how we’re going to resolve them if that becomes a problem."
Sounds like about the only approach that can work with a non-unified model, just throw all your offensive content in there and cut out the parts that specific regions won’t allow. Unfortunately, as Hines suggests, there’s really no way around this, as the only other option would be a worldwide ratings board, but that would never work. Cultures are too varied and sensibilities too different for us to ever agree on one set of "video game morals" to apply to everyone. It may be frustrating Pete, but I guess it’s the best we can do.
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