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Games Entertainment

Different Country, Different Game Content 66

Posted by simoniker from the paddington-bears-added-for-peru? dept.
Thanks to EvilAvatar for finding a registration-not-required (via NPR) version of a LA Times article about changing game content for different cultures. As the article describes, "Red blood in a game sold in the United States turns green in Australia. A topless character in a European title acquires a bikini in the U.S. Human enemies in a U.S. game morph into robots in Germany. Violent sex scenes in a Japanese game disappear in the American version." There's also discussion of localizing for cultural reasons, citing Animal Crossing, which has added "..folding lawn chairs, inflatable wading pools, tiki torches and pink flamingos" for the US version.
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Different Country, Different Game Content More

Different Country, Different Game Content

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  • Uhm, not really. I had no idea it and other items were added to the US version.

  • Wolfenstein (Score:4, Funny)

    by cubedbee ( 629822 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @10:35AM (#6170833)
    I wonder how the Wolfenstein games were altered for Germany? Take away the nazis and the blood and you don't have much of a game

    • Re:Wolfenstein (Score:2, Informative)

      by mixy1plik ( 113553 ) *
      IIRC, the whole Wolfenstein series was banned.

    • Re:Wolfenstein (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Certain symbols and insignia which are illegal in Germany were removed. The soldiers, less the symbols, stayed in, though.

      In addition they removed the gory effects, namely the blood. This is done in all games, unless only aliens of obviously non-human form spill the blood. In half-life the soldiers were removed with robots which claimed to "lose gear oil" when hit.

      I remember that the initial RTCW batch could not be sold because some illegal symbols were overlooked in the manual, and they had to re-print t
      • heh yes, the original german RTCW used US screenshots for the manual. one of them features a soldier with a swaistika. The realy funny part is, in some of the very first shippings, when holding the manual against the light you can actutally see a somewhat swaistika shaped area on one page, that seems to be drawn over by hand using an ink marker :)

  • A few quotes... (Score:3, Funny)

    by svenjob ( 671129 ) <vtsvenjob.gmail@com> on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @10:38AM (#6170864)
    ...taken out of context.
    "Sex is no problem here," Holowaty said.
    I'm moving to Germany today!
    "But violence is very problematic."
    Hmm, maybe I'd better pack a few of these [powerlabs.org] instead of condoms.
    • 1. I agree with this person for one now my beef with this shi7. 2. lets keep this real they have a ratings board lets see um nude rated M um blood rated lets see oh just on cutting someone head off um 13. 3. All I'm saying is now is the time to make a stand I want to play the game the way it was meant to be played and see what the author or director or programmer wants me to see in his mind no to have nothing blocked or changed I'm telling you this is what wrong with the world and people smoke crack cause n
      • use it and enforce it like punctuation and don't give us all a hard time reading your "wordstream" it is so hard to comprehend i really don't want to whine but this is just to much... ;-)

  • In other words... (Score:5, Funny)

    by NetDanzr ( 619387 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @10:48AM (#6170968)
    Americans are overly violent, while Europeans are oversexed. That's it; I'm moving to Europe!
    • Hey man, move to the unknown place called Eurorica. It's all good over here.

  • I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Monkeylaser ( 674360 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @10:54AM (#6171046)
    I wonder what violent sex scenes they are referring to that have been taken out of Japanese video games? I heard that in D2 (no, not diablo 2, the dreamcast D2) there was some tentacle rape or something taken out. (I used to work in game retail before graduating college and becoming a cubicle-bound minion of the state government.)

    The way the German command and conquer games work is kind of funny. It reminds me of the old super nintendo mortal Kombat game, where they took out the blood and people stayed away in droves, going for the Blood coded genesis version.

    One of the amusing things to note is how much of an uproar American otaku will cause whenever anything at all is taken out of a Japanese game which makes it to the US. Mind you, a lot of these fanboys probably are looking for the prurient detail, but I can understand if it was a major plot point. I rather pity anime fans every time certain companies (read funimation) picks up an anime, because it ends up edited to the point where it's no longer recognizeable.

    A question to all the other /.ers out there, have you ever played a game which was notably edited for American market? I think the most obvious example of this was Xenosaga, although Metal Gear Solid 2 after 9/11 also got a number of cinema scenes axed. (A rather unfortunate thing in my mind, while the game was ridiculous, it was very pretty.)

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Dreaded Tuesday ( 675256 )
      I dont think I've played a game edited for the American market. However, all of the children in the European version of Fallout 2 were removed (but none of the puzzles/quests involving them, leading to annoyingly unfinishable tasks...) because (apparently) you are not allowed to be able to harm children in games. On which note, it suddenly occurs to me that a badly aimed shotgun shell in Deus Ex killed a kid while I was playing yesterday. Maybe the laws have changed..?
      • Heh, reminds me of the unpatched version of Fallout 2 with all the unfinishable quests which could cause fatal errors in the game. Heh.

        Well, perhaps someone didn't notice the kid character models or something. Censors aren't all-knowing, after all. Human like everyone else. Even if we want to get a little Tommy Vercetti on their asses from time to time for messing up our cool games.

      • However, all of the children in the European version of Fallout 2 were removed (but none of the puzzles/quests involving them, leading to annoyingly unfinishable tasks...)

        Oh, man! Now I know! Odd, I don't remember this being mentioned in the FAQs or the Interplay website. Thank god they weren't required for the main quest. I just gave up trying to find/rescue that kid from the underground people.
    • please tell me what was taken out of xenosaga? And isn't the game just cutscenes? :)
    • One of the amusing things to note is how much of an uproar American otaku will cause whenever anything at all is taken out of a Japanese game which makes it to the US. Mind you, a lot of these fanboys probably are looking for the prurient detail, but I can understand if it was a major plot point. I rather pity anime fans every time certain companies (read funimation) picks up an anime, because it ends up edited to the point where it's no longer recognizeable.

      I guess you could say we're purists, but isn't

      • Hell, I'm one of you. The final scene of Cowboy Bebop caused me to weep, and then smile, realising it was probably the best ending I've seen for an anime.

        And I do pity you, as well as myself when something bad happens to an anime. I still twitch with revulsion at what's done to some series, but you have to admit, the half-literate rantings I see exploding on some newsgroups expose the teenagers for the iconoclastic ignoramuses they are.

        Sure, it's logical for us hard-core fans to want something that ha

        • All true, but those of us who want the real stuff can always buy foreign copies on Ebay, brought back from Japan by people "vacationing" there! :)

          I just got a copy of the japanese edition of the Cowboy Bebop movie... The subtitles were a little weird, but I saw that as more of a feature than a bug. Some were very entertaining, like Jet Black asking a cop whether his department was going to "energetically investigate" the terrorism case. It sounded like someone just typed in the translation straight from th
          • Well most anime dvds on ebay, especialy those with subtitles, especialy those with weird subtitles, are bootleg copies from Hong Kong ... ...
            • Ah, but are they bootlegs of the pure and true Japanese versions? Or of the crippled, sad American imports? I'm guessing they're the good stuff. :)
              • The Japanese versions. But that's worst imo, I'm all for making the dub companies lose money but ... ...
                • Hang on, you missed my point. I don't want to make anyone lose money; I just want an uncut version of an anime I like. I'm not going out and looking for a hong-kong bootleg; I'm just looking for the most authentic copy I can find. Maybe it's a bootleg and maybe it's not (how could I tell?). But, if it's from over there, it's probably a whole lot closer to the source, you know?

                  Having said that, my copy looks pretty good; if it's a bootleg, it's a surprisingly well-manufactured one. I'd really be surprised i
                  • I know the japanese dvd of this didn't have subtitles, so yours is deffinately bootleg.

                    check out http://www.digital.anime.org.uk/piratefaq.html [anime.org.uk]

                    Other than that, if you aren't sure about something (and it isn't very old) go to the offical japanese site, they usualy mention dvd releases and would say if it has subtitles. (If you can't read japanese, learn or make a friend who can.)
                    • Well, I checked out the FAQ, and although it's still not definite in my opinion, you do seem to present a strong argument. If it is bootleg, I really am surprised; it looks amazingly official. In my own defense, the person who sold it to me told me it was a "real" copy, so I bought it thinking it was the real deal. FWIW.

                      I'm getting a sense that I've at least somewhat irritated you by suggesting people use Ebay. Hopefully, you'll understand that out of all the anime DVDs I've bought, I only got the one on e
                    • yeah it does suck when people mess with a good thing but enough of that how did you like the movie?
            • BY THE WAY: on re-reading this thread, I think maybe it isn't clear that my post saying "at least they bootlegged the Japanese version" was meant HUMOROUSLY. So, no hard feelings? Just kidding, ok? I keep forgetting that plain text is a tricky medium...

      • it's also the same reason cartoon fans hate to watch Looney Toons on Cartoon Network, or why a bootleg of Disney's "Song of the South" is so expensive.
    • It reminds me of the old super nintendo mortal Kombat game, where they took out the blood and people stayed away in droves, going for the Blood coded genesis version.

      Having owned both of these versions, I actually preferred the Super Nintendo Mortal Kombat. I thought the fatalities were a lot more creative. And I feel the gameplay was little better.

      ----

      kid: I think Mortal Kombat for Sega Genesis is the best game ever.
      Billy Madison: Although Mortal Kombat is a very good game, I think Donkey Kong
    • actuly funimation offers a release that is uncut for Dragon Ball and DBZ atleast the few other shows they have ie yu gi oh dont have enought of a market to justify it. Fruits Basket is also uncut. MGS2 was cut in all version so it not really editng for diffrent cultures.

  • Foiled by Copy Protection (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fuzzybunny ( 112938 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @10:58AM (#6171075) Homepage Journal

    What's too bad about this is that, if I feel like playing a certain game, I can't go out and buy the unaltered version.

    Used to be the case that I'd run to the store to pick up what's basically a license key, with fancy packaging and a CD-ROM included, then download an ISO and burn it from somewhere outside the country.

    Now, some newer anti-piracy technology doesn't let me burn CDs, so in effect I have to wait for my game to arrive in the mail from some overseas distributor, at a substantial markup.

    Terrible, terrible. Woe is me. Oh well, it's a nice day outside :)

  • Green blood? (Score:4, Funny)

    by (trb001) ( 224998 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @11:16AM (#6171380) Homepage
    I'm missing something here...I understand all of the other corrolations, but why does red blood in America turn green in Australia? Have our neighbors down under become infested with Klingons?

    --trb
    • Whereas here in England there's royal blue blood ;)
    • I thought Klingons had pink blood?

    • Re:Green blood? (Score:5, Funny)

      by coaxial ( 28297 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @12:20PM (#6172254) Homepage
      Have our neighbors down under become infested with Klingons?

      Dude! Klingons have magenta blood. Vulcans have green blood.

      (placing the L-sign on my forhead) LOOOSER! :P

    • Re:Green blood? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @12:47PM (#6172569) Homepage Journal
      " but why does red blood in America turn green in Australia? Have our neighbors down under become infested with Klingons?"

      That was a VERY clever troll intended to lure out the Star Trek fanatics. Kudos!
    • Anyone else remember seeing games like Samurai Showdown spurt white blood from characters that got hit? It looked like you just cut open a milk carton or something! I'm glad people are gradually becoming less uptight so that we don't have children thinking milk is in their veins.

      I think the NeoGeo hardware had a switch that let you choose what color the blood would be though, so I guess it was up to the arcade owner.

      But I don't see much point in making the blood green... I'd rather see no blood at all tha

    • Re:Green blood? (Score:2, Informative)

      by brumby ( 93242 )
      I don't remember seeing a 'green blood' game here in Australia. I'd expect it to be more 'beer' coloured anyway. :-)

      The first SNES game I worked on though, we had to do a 'green blood' version for the European release, so it could be sold in Germany. It was just a case of making the absolute minimum change that would get around the law. But we were allowed to keep the guy bursting into flames when hit with a flame thrower.

    • This happened a LONG time ago with one of the versions of Carmageddon that came out, so, instead of mowing down pedestrians, you were cleaning the zombie-infested streets. This would be the only time it happened, and the original in all its blood-splattered gore-y could still be purchased.
    • When Carmageddon was about to be released in Australia (many years ago), one of our very reactionary current affairs shows got hold of it and started a campaign to get it banned. They constantly claimed that the game was being marketed to young children. Back then, the public assumed that they were the only ones playing computer games.

      As expected, Christian groups and "family first" organisations got on the bandwagon, and eventually the game was changed, so that rather than running over people, the aim was

  • Would that explain? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by noitalever ( 150546 )
    Why sometimes things look "almost" right, but still really weird, when it comes to scenery and phrases used in some games that came over from Japan? I get a kick out of designers that grab some eccentric part of american "life" and assume that everyone uses it. Like pink flamingoes for example. They are funny, but I don't know a single person that actually owns one. There are other examples i'm sure...

    • Re:Would that explain? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      To be fair to Animal Crossing, the addition of pink flamingoes etc. wasn't intended to make it marketable to an American audience as much as it was simply to provide more options for decorating your character's house. They made several other gameplay-related changes to the US version, presumably reflecting changes they would have made to the Japanese version if they had the time. Sometimes it just happens. Look at Splinter Cell; the PS2 and Gamecube versions have more 'stuff' in them than the Xbox versio
    • Maybe it turns out the translations aren't actually bad at all... certain parts were just edited out for content! Turns out the Japanese enjoy censoring random verbs and nouns in order to protect our fragile North American minds.
  • 1. I agree with this person for one now my beef with this shi7. 2. lets keep this real they have a ratings board lets see um nude rated M um blood rated lets see oh just on cutting someone head off um 13. 3. All I'm saying is now is the time to make a stand I want to play the game the way it was meant to be played and see what the author or director or programmer wants me to see in his mind no to have nothing blocked or changed I'm telling you this is what wrong with the world and people smoke crack cause n
    • I'm with you. Games are an art form, and shouldn't be tampered with so some overzealous parent or government authority can feel warm and fuzzy about it. I generally just buy the authentic foreign stuff, though, if I think something's been done to a game or anime. Go to the source, you know?

      'Course, they don't *always* tamper with games. So this isn't always necessary.

      • Apparently not everyone agrees. Actually the game gets changed cause most of the people from a certain culture might be offenced or want certain item X removed/added.

        Of course, there are also regulations, like the German robots/cyborgs etc, but mainly I think distributors change it for the market. And you can't blame them, trying to increase profit.

        BTW, I don't know about all of you, but I am glad japanese games get translated, cause my current knowledge of the language is pretty bad ;)
        • Well, it's perfectly fine that not everyone agrees with me; I don't expect them to (how boring would life be if everyone agreed on everything? It would destroy Slashdot...). But, in all fairness, let me clarify my position slightly:

          I don't mind changes that don't alter the content of a game significantly -- for instance, they've *got* to translate the game into my language, or I won't be able to use it. All I ask is that they try to be accurate in their translation.

          I don't like changes that radically alte
  • with some games theres codes to get the orginal scenes back in mostly with SEGA systems. ie Mortal kombat: DULLARD down up left left a right down. or Snatcher: entered Konami as your name in the computer and you got the uncut japanese version including the shower scene.
  • Of all countries, Germany is one of the trickiest to tackle, publishers say. The country has spent five decades developing one of the world's strictest decency standards for virtually all media, from books and comics to music and games.

    Yet they produce some of the world's raunchiest pr0n.
  • This had 2 forms of censorship in the original release which was extremly annoying yet subtle. Blood was green in the US release. Easy, they released a patch for that. The female chick wore a dang bra. Easy to fix, delete some file and it was all better. Even though 90% of the time you saw her from behind. Who the heck could play that game multiplayer with all the network issues?
  • lidays that were peculiarly Japanese, such as White Day on March 14 when Japanese girls give gifts to boys, were rooted out and American holidays were added, including Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.

    Even the furniture got a makeover. ``We had a series of furniture that resembled a Japanese farmhouse from the 1800s that we took out because no one in the U.S. would recognize it,'' said Bill Trinen, an associate producer at Nintendo. ``We also took out the public baths that you see in Japan but not here

  • Old news (Score:2, Interesting)

    by someguy456 ( 607900 )

    Back in the old days, Nintendo did something like this (not for any kind of censorship however).

    After Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros 2 was released in Japan, with similar gameplay to SMB 1, only different levels (like a mod). The American Super Mario Bros. 2 was only a hacked version of some other Arabian game or something like that. That's why it's so different from SMB 1 & 3.

    The American SMB 2 was released in Japan as Super Mario USA.

    The Japananese SMB 2 was released in the US later, on the SN

  • On the bright side, modifications aren't always a decrease in quality.

    What might otherwise be boring and pointless dialog in Japan can turn into an uproarious web phenomenon in the US :)

  • So when German games are ported to Japan... (Score:3, Funny)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @05:14AM (#6179861) Journal
    ... are the robots cast in violent sex scenes?

  • They got some stuff wrong (Score:4, Informative)

    by MGrie ( 676464 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @06:37AM (#6180140) Homepage
    Wolfenstein 3D and Kz-manager are NOT INDEXED!
    read on...

    The indexing practice here in germany actually is a bit more fine grained than they discribed in that article.
    At first, there are two institutions. The USK (Unterhaltungssoftwareselbstkontrolle/Voluntary gamesself control) USK ,a non govermental institution, that tests games, and gives out age recommendations ranging from "educational/no age limit" to "not below 18".

    The second institute is the "Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefÃhrdende schriften/ federal control comission of Youth endangering media" or BPJS, the federal organ.

    The functioning of these 2 institutions have been changed a bit recently. Before, the USK was allowed to test any game they saw fit, but was only able to issue recommendations, while the BPJS was able to index or ban games (more on that later), but was only allowed to test games when an official complaint has been filed with them.

    The new law basically says, that every game, that is not tested and rated by the USK has to be treated like it has an USK18 (not below 18) tag.

    The rest of the system still stands.
    The BPJS need to get an complaint about the contents of a certain game (which requires that game to be sold in Germany first), then test it for some weeks (in which the game still is beeing sold) and then decides it the game is left alone as USK18, gets indexed, or gets "eingezogen".

    To clear up the terms.
    USK18 means, the game may not be sold to minors, but can be displayed and advertised.

    Indexed means, it may not be shown in public or be advertised, but still can be sold to adults. (in effect, its even possible to display and offer the game, but only in the classical "smut corner" that is inacessible to minors, most stores shun that. Big retailers won't sell these games, gameshops usually have a small stack behind the counter where so you have to ask to get them.

    Eingezogen is in effect banned.
    Ownership in general is still allowed, but any form of distribution, even in private, is forbidden. This usually only applies to heavy Racial/Nazi content. (Mein kampf, Kzmanager and Wolfenstein3D all are Banned and NOT indexed).

    Hope that clears it up.. i stopped counting just how often i wrote this in various threads on god-know-how-many newspages, since i yet have to come about one single american article about the german jugendschutz (youth protection) that atlest gets the basic facts right.
    • I am so very glad that my grandparents emigrated! (Well, for lots of reasons. Living through the Great Depression beat living through the "Thousand Year Reich," obviously.)

      Thank you, Otto von Bismarck! If he had been less of a bastard, I might be thinking The Settlers was the greatest thing since sliced bread today.... well, whoever was born in my place would I mean... Would there even have been a First and Second World War if Bismark was less of a bastard? Oh... alternate history makes my head hurt..

  • As an American in Germany I find it difficult to find a significant number of games that I would like to play (mostly the 3D action type). This is really annoying. As Amazon and other internet shops no longer ship U.S. games to Europe I have no good source for such games if I want to play them.

    Somebody mentioned that Castle Wolfenstein 3D, was not on the index. While this may be true; the trouble is that most over-18 titles are not carried by stores. They want to avoid the extra costs of an over-18 onl

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