More on Sony caves to Quebeckers over "offensive" videogame [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Subject: RE: [Politech] Sony caves to angry Quebeckers over 
"offensive"videogame [fs]
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 11:07:03 -0500
Thread-Index: AcOdZ36+vYWfEXFZStGK4e3k9vm9SAAAdZbA
From: "Buck Calabro" <Buck.Calabro () commsoft net>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>

>This is the first time I've ever heard of
>a game publisher pull content because
>some group found it objectionable. Go figger.

As non-PC as this is going to sound, I've been a player of historical 
simulation board games (war games) for over 3 decades.  One of the leading 
publishers of these games was a company called Avalon Hill.  WWII was (and 
remains) a very popular topic.  Many of the box covers feature the swastika 
(on flags or tanks, etc.)  I recall that the games got different box covers 
when sold in Germany: covers which omitted the historically correct (but 
politically taboo) swastika.

I did a little Googling and couldn't find many hard references to back up 
my recollection.   http://www.kw.igs.net/~tacit/frames/aanda/nova.htm where 
the following quote originates "<More on the pieces.> To appease mass 
market sensibilities the Nazi swastika was replaced with the German 
national cross symbol." Also 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Military-Modeling/message/3105 which mentions 
the ban on the swastika in Germany.

One might argue that this is a different situation, but I'm just trying to 
point out that humanity has a long history of censorship.  Even in games.
  --buck calabro

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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 10:20:11 -0600
From: politech () leekillough com
Message-Id: <200310281620.h9SGKBvj023226 () hamming leekillough com>
Subject: Re: Sony caves to angry Quebeckers

> Hey Declan --
>
> This is the first time I've ever heard of a game publisher pull content
> because some group found it objectionable. Go figger.

It's not the first. Doom had to remove swastikas from its levels to sell the
game in Germany.

http://www.rome.ro/lee_killough/memorabilia/swastika.shtml

Lee

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