Video Game Law – Page 3

Spanish Cabbies Want GTA4 Banned Too!

After being banned from Thailand, Rockstar’s infamous Grand Theft Auto 4 may also see a boot from another country: Spain. According to GamePolitics, the Catalan Taxi Federation’s secretary general Josep Maria Goñi has asked the government to ban the game.

Goñi states that the move has been triggered by the Thailand murder case where a loser kid wanted to know “if it’s as easy to hijack a taxi as it is in the game” and did just that. Kid will soon face execution by a lethal injection.

And GTA isn’t the only one on Goñi’s hitlist. He wants a ban on all games with “a high level of violence or which “celebrate” drug trafficking or prostitution”. Well, that isn’t something new, because there must be about a million people or more on this planet who want a ban on those.

Regardless, it should be noted that Goñi didn’t say anything about movies. Apparently, movies with a high level of violence and which celebrate drug trafficking or prostitution must be perfectly fine. But video games? Think of the kids!

While we don’t know how the Spanish Government has responded to this, we’ll just hope that they won’t. There must be more important matters in Spain that banning video games, dammit!

Fallout 3 Refused Classification in Australia!

Bethesda’s take on the glorious Fallout series, Fallout 3 has been refused classification in Australia! The news has been confirmed by the guys at Internode, the consequences of which are that the game is effectively banned in the land of kangaroos.

Why the banning has taken place is currently unknown, although a pretty good guess will be violence. Screenshots of the game released over the months have pointed to some pretty messy violence (much like the first two games). The game is pretty violent and bloody as it is, but the famed “Bloody Mess” perk in the game makes it bloodier and messier. Bethesda had confirmed recently that it will be returning. Perhaps that is reason for refusing classification?

Sex is definitely played down in the game, as Bethesda had mentioned. The game will have mature themes, but not so much about sex as in Fallout 2. That pretty much leaves violence in…

The game will most probably be sent in for a re-evaluation after some modifications. Fallout 3 is just too big a property to not be released in Australia. Besides, we want Zero Punctuation to be review it!

Court Denies Preliminary Injunction Relating to Activision – Vivendi Games Combination

Activision, Inc. today announced that the Delaware Court of Chancery has denied the Wayne County Employees’ Retirement System’s request for a preliminary injunction relating to Activision’s proposed combination with Vivendi Games, Inc., the interactive entertainment business of Vivendi S.A.

A special meeting of stockholders of Activision, Inc. will be held on Tuesday, July 8, 2008, to consider and vote on proposals to approve the transaction and related matters. If Activision’s stockholders approve the transaction and the other matters to be considered at the special meeting, Activision anticipates closing the business combination on or about July 9, 2008.

The meeting will be at 11:00 a.m., local time, at The Peninsula Hotel located at 9882 South Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90212.

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $2.9 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008.

Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and South Korea. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company’s website, www.activision.com.

Too Human’s problems is Epic’s fault?

too human

Today Silicon Knights, the development team behind the original Legacy of Kane, Eternal Darkness, and the upcoming Too Human title, has file a lawsuit against Epic games because of their Unreal 3 Engine. According to the suit they have failed to provide a working game engine which they paid over $75,000 for.

Silicon Knights claims that Gears of War used a superior version of the Unreal 3 with a half-assed copy sent to Silicon Knights amongst other developers. An adequate, working version of the engine was not made until Epic altered the engine for Gears of war, a version they failed to release to other license holders such as Silicon Knights. Furthermore the suit claims that, after Silicon Knights had numerous problems with the engine Epic games failed to fix the engine, and were unwilling to do so. They had tried, for a year’s time, to resolve the issue with Epic games, but because of Epic games they have had to indeed file a lawsuit.

Silicon Knights has since abandoned the Unreal 3 engine to develop their own engine for Too Human. The title is still tentatively scheduled for release later this year on the 360.

[via GameDaily]

You gotta FIGHT! For your RIGHT! To Plaaaaaaaaaay GAMES!

I reported a couple of days ago on the BBFC and Irish Film Censor Office’s decisions to effectively ban Manhunt 2 in the United Kingdom and Ireland by refusing to rate the game, citing “casual sadism” and “callous violence”, and the ESRB’s decision to rate the game “Adults Only”. Since then, Sony and Nintendo have both reaffirmed their policies (which I was unaware of at the time of the last article) of refusing to license “AO”-rated games, or to even let them play on their systems. Universally, these boards and companies are treating this game as an imminent threat to society, and that is not an exaggeration on my part.

This should put a burr beneath the scrotum of any adult who feels that we have a certain right to decide what forms of entertainment are suitable for our own consumption. As an American, I applaud the constitutionally-enforced inability of the ESRB to ban this game, but am saddened and disturbed by Nintendo’s and Sony’s decisions to disallow games designed for responsible, mentally-capable adults. According to figures from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), sixty-nine percent of American heads of households play computer and video games, and the average gamer age is 33. Of all gamers, only 31% are under age 18, with 44% falling between 18-49 years of age, and 25% aged 50 years and over. Quick addition tells us 79% of all gamers are adults, yet these companies, boards, and committees find this adult content intolerable, and in some cases illegal. This is disheartening to me in a way I can’t begin to express to you.

But I digress. Before I lose you on this one, I wanted to share with you GAMERS FOR GAMING, a cause championed by Jim Sterling and David Houghton, two of my new favoritest tea-sipping bad-asses over at Destructoid.com. They’ve attached themselves to this story like a couple of rabid wolves may attach themselves to… another rabid wolf… attached to… freedom of expression? I dunno, metaphors aside, these guys are working on getting our thoughts and feelings across to everyone who is working to stifle our freedom to choose, the freedom of media, and the freedom of expression in art. Fight with us. Follow along. This affects us as gamers, as consumers, and as free people. It’s not a little issue. It’s not about one game, but about everything that ratings boards and law makers can take from you in the future once we start down this slippery slope. There are so many reasons to get in on this, I’ll not try to innumerate them. Get involved.

A very special thank you to the people with the voice that have taken up this torch. It’s good to see gamers getting involved in something worthwhile.

Manhunt 2 rated AO stateside; Banned in Britain, Ireland

Once again, stuffy old people are afraid to count on free adults to distinguish for themselves the bold line between fictitious entertainment and really-real life. Low-resolution slaughterfest and high-profile hype-machine Manhunt 2 (slated for release on PS2, Wii, and PSP) is receiving the royal cold-shoulder from ratings boards across the globe, being banned so far in Ireland and the United Kingdom, and awarded the scarlet letters “AO” in the US. I’m sure the mania isn’t settled yet. Read on for the disheartening details of worldwide stupidity and my carefully formed, ojective rebuttal.

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