"Amritsar temple. In 2004, the parents of a murdered 14-year-old boy blamed ""Manhunt"" as having been ""connected"" to the murder. It was later found not to be, as the game was found in the victim's home, rather than the killer's. Leicestershire police ""did not uncover any connections to the computer game."" The accusations prompted some retailers to remove the game from their shelves. Nevertheless, following this incident the sales of the game rose due to the free publicity from newspaper headlines. The sequel, ""Manhunt 2"", released in 2007, was banned from being sold in the UK by the BBFC. On"
"copious amounts of blood and gore. The 1996 game, Duke Nukem 3D, was accused of promoting pornography and violence; as a result of the criticism, censored versions of the game were released in certain countries. In the 1999 Columbine shootings, violent video games were for a time directly blamed by some for the incident, and labeled as ""murder simulators"". In 2001, ""Grand Theft Auto III"" was released, which started the controversy over again. The first video game TV show was GamePro TV. The first television channel dedicated to video gaming and culture, G4, was launched in 2002. However, over the"
"to rewind to any point before the player died. Japanese gaming magazine ""Famitsu"" reviewed the PlayStation console port, giving it a 21 out of 40 score. ""Duke Nukem 3D"" was attacked by some critics, who alleged that it promoted pornography and murder. Jamia Wilson, then vice president of Women's Media Center, criticized the depictions of women for being ""extremely harmful, especially to young women"". In response to the criticism encountered, censored versions of the game were released in certain countries in order to avoid it being banned altogether. A similar censored version was carried at Wal-Mart retail stores in the"
"evidence the pair practiced the massacre in ""Doom"". Video games sparked controversy again when, in November 2001, at the age of twenty-one, Shawn Woolley committed suicide in a state his mother claimed was an addiction to ""EverQuest"". Woolley's mother said, Later video game controversies centered on whether some murderers were inspired by crime simulators. In February 2003, 16-year-old American Dustin Lynch was charged with aggravated murder. He pleaded insanity in that he was obsessed with ""Grand Theft Auto III"". Jack Thompson, an attorney and an opponent of video games, offered to represent Lynch. Thompson encouraged the father of the victim"
"death of a British youth by his friend who obsessively played the game. The killer used a hammer just as in the game he played. Take-Two/Rockstar, anticipating the firestorm of criticism with the release of the murder simulator sequel, is lying to the public on both sides of the pond in stating this week that the game had nothing to do with the murder. His efforts to have ""Manhunt 2"" banned were unsuccessful. In New Zealand, the game was banned on December 11, 2003, with possession deemed an offence. Bill Hastings, the Chief Censor, stated ""it's a game where the"
"of 1 January 2013. The ""Grand Theft Auto"" series has caused controversy in Australia. In 2002, ""Grand Theft Auto III"" was withdrawn from sale for allowing players to have sexual intercourse with virtual prostitutes; the game was later reinstated when this action was removed. Specifically, the player could solicit intercourse from a virtual prostitute, and then kill her. The ability to solicit sex from prostitutes in the game was the action that was removed, but the player could still violently murder them. """" was also pre-censored for the same reasons. Though, in 2010 Vice City was classified uncut again receiving"
"from the political organization ""Movimento Diritti Civili"" (Civil Rights Movement) for its realistic depiction of violence, with the law enforcement agency Guardia di Finanza seizing over 5,500 unsold copies. After Sony Computer Entertainment asked for a re-examination of the seizure decree, the ban was lifted a few months later. ""Resident Evil 2"" received critical acclaim. Its original PlayStation release holds an average score of 89 out of 100 points at Metacritic. The majority of reviews praised ""Resident Evil 2"" for its atmosphere, setting, graphics and audio, but criticized its controls, voice acting and certain gameplay elements. IGN's Ricardo Sanchez thought"
"Condemned 2: Bloodshot Condemned 2: Bloodshot (titled Condemned 2 in Australia, Europe and Asia) is a psychological survival horror video game, developed by Monolith Productions and published by Sega and Warner Bros. Games for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles. It is the sequel to the 2005 game """". Due to its violent content, the game was indexed in Germany by the BPjM in April 2008 and subsequently banned in October 2008. Greg Grunberg does not reprise his role as Ethan Thomas in ""Condemned 2"". Instead, Ethan is voiced by André Sogliuzzo. ""Condemned 2: Bloodshot"" is a"
"find the right indie development team to ""take over the franchise and move it forward."" Condemned 2: Bloodshot Condemned 2: Bloodshot (titled Condemned 2 in Australia, Europe and Asia) is a psychological survival horror video game, developed by Monolith Productions and published by Sega and Warner Bros. Games for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles. It is the sequel to the 2005 game """". Due to its violent content, the game was indexed in Germany by the BPjM in April 2008 and subsequently banned in October 2008. Greg Grunberg does not reprise his role as Ethan Thomas"
"the game; a modified version was re-released with an MA15+ classification in January 2002, removing all instances of sexual acts with prostitutes. On 25 June 2003, teenage stepbrothers William and Josh Buckner shot and killed Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede. In statements to investigators, the perpretators claimed their actions were inspired by ""Grand Theft Auto III"". In response, on 20 October 2003, the families of Hamel and Bede filed a US$246 million lawsuit against Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, Sony Computer Entertainment and Wal-Mart. Rockstar and Take-Two filed for dismissal of the lawsuit, stating in United States district court on 29"
"to ""excessive abhorrent content"". On May 1, 2007, Malaysia banned the game outright due to ""very high impact violence & offensive depictions of cruelty"". The game was also banned in Germany and temporarily banned for sale in Sweden, however it was later legally made available worldwide through GOG.com in 2009 and Desura in 2012, and was successfully greenlit on Steam later that year. The game received a mixed reception from critics upon its release in 2003, with some reviewers going so far as to give the game a score of zero, while others argued in favour of the game's concept"
"versions of the game, except for Game Boy's, were confiscated from the German market for violating §131 of the country's penal code, which prohibited showing gruesome violence against humans. (The ban ended in 2005, due to the ten-year limitation for confiscations.) The game's violence was censored in Japan. There, Nintendo insisted on changing the blood shown in the game from red to green, as well as making the screen turn black-and-white for all character-specific Fatality moves. In 2009, ""Mortal Kombat"" developer and publisher Midway Games was forced to tone down the Joker's finishing move to secure the ESRB T-rating for"
"others be restricted."" The fighting game """" was temporarily banned in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Originally, the title of the game was rebranded as ""Injustice: The Mighty Among Us"" for promotional uses in those areas. It is speculated that ""Injustice"" was banned because of the inclusion of the word 'Gods' in the title, the cleavage exposed in the outfits of some female characters, and overall bloodiness. Eventually, the ban in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait was lifted. """" (2002) sparked controversy due to a level featuring the killing of Sikhs within a depiction of their most holy"
"of publicity ... it was also cited in UK Parliament for being classified as ""15"" due to its use of real actors."" This came at a time when Sega was capitalizing on its image as an edgy company with attitude, and this only reinforced that image. By far the year's most controversial game was Midway's ""Mortal Kombat"", ported to the Genesis and SNES by Acclaim. In response to public outcry over the game's graphic violence, Nintendo decided to replace the blood in the game with ""sweat"" and the arcade's gruesome ""fatalities"" with less violent finishing moves. Sega took a different"
"phenomenon. In 1992, with Midway's release of the first ""Mortal Kombat"" video game, and then in 1993 with id's ""Doom"", genuine controversy was first ignited as the wide and growing popularity of violent video games came into direct conflict with the moral and religious ethics of concerned citizens. Protests and game-bannings followed the publicizing of these conflicts, and controversies would erupt periodically throughout the 1990s with the releases of such games as ""Dreamweb"" (1992), ""Wolfenstein 3D"" (1992), ""Mortal Kombat II"" (1993), ""Phantasmagoria"" (1995), ""Duke Nukem 3D"" (1996), ""Blood"" (1997), ""Grand Theft Auto"" (1997), ""Carmageddon"" (1997), ""Postal"" (1997), ""Mortal Kombat 3"""
"result, it was decided to censor the game for most platforms by changing the blood from red to white and disabling the fatal attack animations. The win quotes were also censored, and references to death or blood were altered. In the Super NES version, the blood was recolored orange and the fatal attacks were removed. The 3DO version was released in 1994 with all blood and fatality graphics intact. As a result, some retailers didn't carry this edition of the game. The censoring of the Neo Geo console version was unusual in that it was tied to the specific system."
"a storyline centering on the player's character stalking and raping a mother and her two daughters also caused controversy. Campaigns against the sale of the game resulted in its being banned in many countries. ""RapeLay""'s publisher, which intended the game only to be available in Japan, withdrew it from distribution. Some scholars have expressed the concern that video games may have the effect of reinforcing sexist stereotypes. In 1998, a study by Dietz, conducted at the University of Central Florida, found that of thirty-three games sampled, 41% did not feature female characters, 28% sexually objectified women, 21% depicted violence against"
"incidents in the United States that are speculated to be related to video games have helped fuel controversy, starting with Noah Wilson. On 22 November 1997, Noah Wilson, aged 13, died when his friend, Yancy, stabbed him in the chest with a kitchen knife. Wilson's mother, Andrea Wilson, alleged her son was stabbed to death because of an obsession with the 1995 Midway game ""Mortal Kombat 3""; that Yancy was so obsessed with the game that he believed himself to be the character, Cyrax, who uses a finishing move which Wilson claims involves taking the opponent in a headlock and"
"bearing closer resemblance to that of the 2D era of the series, using a camera that is perpendicular to the two-dimensional playing field. Upon release, ""Mortal Kombat"" received very positive reviews and won several awards for fighting game of the year. It was also a commercial success, selling more than two million copies in the first month alone. Due to its extremely violent content, the game was banned in Australia due to the lack of appropriate ratings category, and South Korea, and it has been reportedly indexed in Germany; the Australian ban was later lifted due to the introduction of"
"officially issued the AO rating for extreme violence three times: ""Thrill Kill"", a fighting game with heavy sexual overtones, received an AO rating with content descriptors for ""Animated Violence"" and ""Animated Blood and Gore"". Due to objections over the game's content, ""Thrill Kill"" was canceled by Electronic Arts after it acquired the North American operations of the game's publisher, Virgin Interactive. ""Manhunt 2"" also received an AO rating for its extreme violence; while the uncut version would be released exclusively for PCs, the console versions were edited to meet the M rating criteria. In January 2015, ""Hatred"", a controversial game"
"versions. Particularly in earlier installments, the localization process usually censored a heavy share of violence, nudity and religious imagery. Removal of such material is prevalent in titles released for Nintendo platforms such as ""Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse"", ""Super Castlevania IV"" and """", because of Nintendo of America's censorship policies at the time. ""Castlevania: Bloodlines"", for the Genesis, was retitled ""Castlevania: The New Generation"" for European and Australian releases to avoid the reference to blood used in the North American title. In addition, blood was re-colored, the gore was removed and the death scene of a character was changed in the"
"with its PlayStation brand of consoles. ""BMX XXX"" for the PlayStation 2 was censored in the American release, while versions on the Xbox and Nintendo GameCube were not and featured nudity. However, Sony allowed nudity in the title ""God of War"", which was also developed by Sony. Sex scenes and nudity have also appeared in Quantic Dream's Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy) and Heavy Rain, released for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 respectively. A new generation of adult social games has emerged that bring multiple users together in sexual environments. Examples include ""Red Light Center, "" and """". While it"
"""good marketing"" in light of the game's numerous delays. Shortly before the game's release, Ubisoft announced that it would voluntarily censor seven scenes, calling it a ""market decision made by Ubisoft EMEA"" and not a response to input from censors. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were affected in European territories, the Middle East, Africa, and Russia, while the Microsoft Windows version remained uncensored. The censorship affected all formats in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, Austria, and Taiwan. The North American release was the only version that was uncensored on all formats. The German version was specifically censored because of"
"many radio stations featured in each game. Some games also feature celebrities portraying themselves, such as Lazlow Jones, Phil Collins, Ricky Gervais and Katt Williams. According to ""The Guinness World Records"" 2008 and 2009 Gamer's Edition, it is the most controversial video game series in history, with over 4,000 articles published about it, which include accusations of glamorising violence, corrupting gamers, and connection to real life crimes. The game was controversial from the very first incarnation of the series. ""Grand Theft Auto"" was condemned in Britain, Germany, and France due to its ""extreme violence"", and Brazil banned it outright. Publicist"
"the story of a group of teens fighting the oppression of a totalitarian police force that attempts to limit the graffiti artists' freedom of speech. In plotlines mirroring the negative reaction of non-commercial artists to the commercialization of the art form by companies such as IBM (and, later, Sony itself) the ""Rakugaki Ōkoku"" series (2003–2005) for Sony's PlayStation 2 revolves around an anonymous hero and his magically imbued-with-life graffiti creations as they struggle against an evil king who only allows art to be produced which can benefit him. Following the original roots of modern graffiti as a political force came"
"game in its first month, and contributed greatly to the continuing profitability of the company. ""Postal 2"" also became the second computer game to be banned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification of New Zealand after ""Manhunt"" for ""Gross, abhorrent content (Urination, High Impact Violence, Animal Cruelty, Homophobia, Racial, Ethnic Stereotypes, etc) on February 17, 2004. It was also banned in Australia by the OFLC that same year due in part to the absence of an 18+ rating for games. In Sweden, the attorney general took the Swedish distributor of the game to court. He was prosecuted with"
"to state court. On 7 June 2003, 18-year-old Devin Moore shot and killed two Alabamian police officers and a dispatcher before fleeing in a patrol car; he was later apprehended. In statements to police, Moore reportedly said ""Life is like a video game. Everybody's got to die sometime"". A $600 million lawsuit was filed against Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, Sony Computer Entertainment, GameStop, and Wal-Mart, claiming that Moore frequently played ""Vice City"" and that his experience with the game led him to commit the crimes. The plaintiffs' attorney, Jack Thompson, claimed the graphic nature of the game caused Moore to"
"PlayStation 3 version exclusively in Japan. A director's cut edition for PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows was released worldwide by Rising Star Games in 2013. ""Deadly Premonition"" is a reboot of Access Games' earlier video game ""Rainy Woods"". In production since 2004, ""Rainy Woods"" was cancelled soon after its debut at the 2007 convention Tokyo Game Show due to technical issues. Upon its release, ""Deadly Premonition"" received wildly varying critical reviews, eventually holding the Guinness World Record for the most critically polarizing survival horror game. It has since garnered a cult following and has been cited as an example of"
"game was also criticized for being excessively violent. Another game that struck a nerve with many analysts and the general public was a game released in 2005 entitled ""Super Columbine Massacre RPG!"" in which a player actually carries out the events of the 1999 Columbine high school shooting. The game and its creator, Danny Ledonne, was both praised for the bold statement on free speech and criticized for being distasteful. It became the first finalist to ever be rejected at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival's Guerrilla Games Competition. In protest of the rejection, many of the finalists withdrew from the"
"up in the United Kingdom, with former Sega of Europe development director Mike Brogan noting that """"Night Trap"" got Sega an awful lot of publicity ... it was also cited in UK Parliament for being classified as ""15"" due to its use of real actors."" This came at a time when Sega was capitalizing on its image as an edgy company with attitude, and this only reinforced that image. By far the year's most controversial game was Midway's ""Mortal Kombat"", ported to the Genesis and SNES by Acclaim Entertainment. In response to public outcry over the game's graphic violence, Nintendo"
"Times"" wrote that the activities within the game ""crossed the line into bad taste"". ""Grand Theft Auto III"" was initially released in Australia with an MA15+ classification. After re-reviewing the game, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) banned it, due to its depiction of sexual content and violence to prostitutes. This prompted distributor Take-Two Interactive to appeal to the OFLC, who reaffirmed the banned status on 11 December 2001, after reanalysing the game and seeking the professional opinion of a forensic psychologist. This prompted Take-Two to recall the game in Australia, and Rockstar to make appropriate changes to"
"relationship between the video games and violence, saying the parents of the victim believed that the killer was influenced by the video game ""Manhunt"". Although the police dismissed the claim and the only copy found belonged to the victim, Tony Blair said the game was unsuitable for children and agreed to discuss with the Home Secretary what action could be taken. The sequel, ""Manhunt 2"", described by the British Board of Film Censors as ""distinguishable ..by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone"", became the first video game banned by the BBFC in the UK for 10 years. Vaz said:"
"""""Mortal Kombat II"" wore its notoriety as a badge of honor, boasting about it in promotional materials, and even parodying it in-game."" The game was banned in Germany, where ""MKII"" was put in the index by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (BPjM) and all versions of the game except for the Game Boy version were subjected to being confiscated from the nation's market for violating the German Penal Code by showing excessive violence and cruel acts against representations of human beings. Due to regional censorship, the game was also released with green-colored blood and black-and-white fatality"