Sega on Germany Release of Aliens vs. Predator: “Not Worth It”

Warning: Intense German

Sega has disclosed that it will not bother to try and release its upcoming title Aliens vs. Predator in Germany due to the country’s stringent ratings system, according to PC Games Hardware.

Riemann Link, the article’s author, says that the press release he was working from made it clear that Sega did not expect the country’s rating board, the USK, to approve the title due to the intense violence that comes as a part of the gameplay experience.  Sega is also unwilling to let the title’s content be compromised at the behest of the ratings board, and therefore fit its ideas of proper entertainment, due to the fact that the game “has been designed in coherence with the Alien and Predator brands–gameplay, graphics, and story all meet a mature theme.”  Ultimately, Link writes, the combination of the costs involved in translating the game and altering its content would not be compensated in Germany due to the significantly smaller available audience allowed to buy it due to its lack of official rating.

The story was picked up by The Escapist as well, which predicts that the game will be submitted for approval in the similarly conservative Australia due to the fact that no language barrier needs to be overcome before it can be released.

The USK has a history of refusing to classify many titles released elsewhere in the world, Australia included, a habit which it has attracted criticism for in the past.  In the linked article, the head of EA’s Germany branch advocates the adoption of the PEGI ratings system, which bears more similarity to the ESRB of all of North America and several other countries in the western hemisphere.  Curiously, USK head Marek Brunner says that his organization is not the true culprit behind what EA is calling censorship–that would be the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, or the BPjM, which defines what is and what is not considered offensive or damaging content in German media.

At least one Internet writer hopes that some good will come out of this latest ban, believing that if Germany can’t be motivated to reassess its ratings system due to public outcry, maybe the “videogame-shaped hole” in its economy will.

Leaked “Modern Warfare 2″ Footage Causes Demand for Rating Re-Evaluation

The leaked footage from Activision’s upcoming title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has prompted an Australian watchdog organization to call for a review of the game’s current MA15+ rating, according to GamePolitics.

The Australian Council on Children and the Media, which refers to itself as a “national community organization” dedicated to the well-being of the country’s children, made the demand in response to the graphic nature of the footage recorded.  The videos, which GamePolitics have stated are being scoured from the web by the game’s publisher Activision, depict the player character and his four companions gunning down defenseless civilians in a crowded airport in an act of terrorism.

The only easily found site that still carries the footage is this page from Online Gaming Europe, and even then only the top video still works.  The gameplay shown has the player character open fire on a line of people with an assault rifle alongside four other men, all of whom are wearing body armor over civilian clothes.  The group then moves through the rest of the airport, with highlights including one of the AI companions coolly shooting through a window to his side and the player gunning down one man dragging another incapacitated man to safety.

What makes this particular story outstanding among Australia’s other anti-gaming reactions is the fact that the gaming community can see where they’re coming from this time.  A significant contributing factor to the footage’s disturbing aspect is the fact that it is made up of actual gameplay as opposed to a cutscene–all of the violence perpetrated by the viewpoint character was done by the player’s input.  Making the massacre part of the player’s interaction with the game undoubtedly provokes a greater (and much more deeply disturbing) emotional response to what’s playing out on screen, which has been tried before in other games.  At the finale the Cold War-set Metal Gear Solid 3, for instance–a series famous for having an extremely unbalanced gameplay-to-cutscene ratio–the player character defeats his mentor, who has defected from the USA to Russia for apparently ideological reasons and is ordered by her to kill her with her own gun.  Rather than have the protagonist shoot her during the course of the cutscene, the view pans out and the letterboxing recedes, at which point the player recognizes–to his extreme discomfort–that the game is going to make you pull the trigger yourself.

Of course, not all of Australia views the ACCM’s outcry in entirely black-or-white terms.  As noted in the first article, Electronic Frontiers Australia lobbyist Nicholas Suzor sees the controversy surrounding the game as even more evidence that the country needs to modify their ratings system, saying that, “We may make an argument that these sorts of topics are not suitable for children, but I don’t at all accept that it is unsuitable for adults.”