Right, now I don’t mind it when governments ban things, because they are disturbing, or whatever, but I do think they have gone too far when it comes to games.
I mean come on: Pokemon! When has Pokemon ever been inappropriate? According to the Mufti (Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority) deemed that some symbols that appeared on the Pokemon were inappropriate for the public. I mean WTF.
Mass Effect was another game to be banned. The reason why, you ask? Lesbians, that’s why. In one brief scene a female player character and a female alien are doing… things that Singapore thought was obviously to rude for the public, but they finally saw reason and lifted the ban. Woo. Go lesbian aliens!
The last game I am going to bring up is Football Manager 2005. You would think that as a game about football you would be safe from bans, not when it comes to China. This game was banned in China for recognising Tibet as an independent nation, and their reasoning was that it “threatened the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China”. If China’s territorial integrity is threatened by a video game, then They have bigger problems.
I can see that games including drugs, or maybe rape, would have a bad reputation, but I mean come on: Pokemon, and football? sometimes the agencies that are supposed to protects us are just plain weird.
Garrett Taylor 
As our old friend, Pogo, said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
I get it when a people are born with a big old broomstick up their collective asses–due, commonly, to some religious thing or other–but, if China is going to ban everything that recognizes Tibet as a sovereign nation, that includes the entire free world. They ought to stop invading other people’s countries and calling them their own. Tibet IS a sovereign nation.
And Singapore getting it’s shorts in a twist over Lesbianism? Puh-leeze. For several centuries it has been common knowledge that any kink anyone wants to indulge can be had on any corner of Singapore. Ask any sailor. Ask any tourist.
But then, we’re speaking of free speech, aren’t we? None of these countries dare permit personal freedom. The tyrants are soon dead or out of work when a human’s inalienable free will and civil rights is free to function.
Keep on slugging away at injustice, Video Games and otherwise. ~GK
LikeLike