Political Incorrectness Leads to Game Recall

It’s not often these days where anything that happens in a video games causes much of a ruckus. Those wars have already been fought.

But overseas, there are still some places where problems occur, such as the age appropriate ratings found in Australia, where games found acceptable for general consumption here are given a mature rating there, and sometimes the actual age of acceptability gets kicked around.

In Germany, we don’t usually think of there being problems with games, or any other content, for that matter, as lately it has been shown that almost anything goes (witness the release of a popular German group’s [Rammstein] newest music video, complete with naked people in [simulated?] acts of sex).

But not everything gets a pass in Germany…

Cultural sensitivity isn’t something that is often considered when releasing a video game, but when it is, publishers usually have only a couple of options: censoring offensive content, not releasing a game in problematic regions, or recalling the title after the material has been recognized. Activision Blizzard has gone with the latter option, pulling Wolfenstein from store shelves because it displays a small swastika at one point in the game.

The offending symbol was discovered in the localized version of the game. Swastikas are prohibited from being displayed in Germany, outside of historical or artistic contexts. As a result, legal consequences for those who use them outside of the approved manners are reportedly severe unless they take immediate action to correct the problem. In a translated statement, Activision announced, “although it is not a conspicuous element in the normal game[...] we have decided to take this game immediately from the German market.”

All three versions of the game—PS3, PC, and Xbox 360—are being recalled.

from Ars Technica

So we see there is a limit in Germany, though we might not completely understand why it would be this.

§

a silly decimeter larger…

•

~