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

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Wed Oct 29 2003 - 21:51:30 PST

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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@private>
    To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@private>
    
     >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@private
    Message-Id: <200310281620.h9SGKBvj023226@private>
    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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