Video games are great fun, but they've also generated a great deal of controversy over
the years thanks to some unusually disturbing adult content.
In some places, this means warning labels and rating systems, but in others, games have
been banned outright.
Here's a look at some of the most controversial video games that were banned around the world.
Bully
The ultimate in schoolyard revenge fantasy fuel, Bully is a Rockstar Games classic where
players control a 15-year-old student named Jimmy who has to navigate his way through
the social networks of his school.
Along the way, players can choose to be, you know, a bully, though if they do, the game
punishes them for it.
While the only violence in the game is limited to fistfights, the whole concept was enough
to get Bully outright banned in Brazil, while major retailers in the UK also pulled it from
shelves despite still stocking much more violent Rockstar titles like Grand Theft Auto.
Kids virtually beating up kids was just a step too far.
Battlefield 3
EA's massive first person shooter Battlefield 3 includes a major assault on Tehran, the
capital of Iran.
Needless to say, that didn't go over well with the powers-that-be in Iran, where the
game was banned.
Stores that sold games were raided, copies were seized, and there were even reports of
people being arrested just for having copies of it.
EA was actually totally cool with the game being banned, because they have no distributors
in Iran anyway, meaning all the copies in the country were illegally pirated copies
to begin with.
Manhunt and Manhunt 2
In 2004, Rockstar's Manhunt was implicated in the death of a 14-year-old boy in England
who was beaten to death with a hammer by a friend obsessed with the game.
The victim's parents launched a crusade against Manhunt, leading to the title being pulled
from shelves across the country.
When Manhunt 2 came out three years later, the UK banned it outright.
Ireland followed suit, making Manhunt 2 the first video game ever banned on the Emerald
Isle.
Wolfenstein
The classic shooter Castle Wolfenstein first came out in 1981, and since then it's spawned
a series of sequels.
But none of those games were ever released in Germany, because the core concept of a
hero fighting Nazis is prohibited by the nation's strict ban against all Nazi imagery.
In 2014, more than three decades after the original came out, German gamers finally got
a chance to play their first Wolfenstein game, but only after Bethesda Games did some major
alterations to the game to remove all explicit Nazi imagery.
The normal version of the game?
Still banned.
Mad World
The creator of the Wii game Mad World tried to navigate a very tricky tightrope when he
designed a game that commented on the dehumanizing nature of violence by placing players inside
a shockingly brutal world where they got points for viciously killing opponents.
As an artistic statement, it was an interesting effort.
As a video game?
Well, it got banned in Germany, had a delayed release in Japan, and was hit with a mature
rating in the UK.
Mad World was even the subject of a campaign to ban it in the United States due in part
to the fact that as a Wii game, it ran counter the platform's family-friendly image.
Maybe if it had featured Luigi killing people instead…
Pokemon
Since 2001, Saudi Arabia has taken a hard line stance against…
Pokemon.
Saudi officials claim that the game promotes gambling among children, and features symbols
reminiscent of Islamic iconography.
So when Pokemon Go took the world by storm in 2016, religious officials took things to
the next level by issuing a fatwa against the app because the game also promoted the
theory of evolution.
Saudi officials also warned about the use of GPS trackers to pinpoint the location of
players.
After all, the Saudi government doesn't want random people spying on each other — that's
their job.
Everything in Australia
If you're an avid gamer down under, you're seriously out of luck, because Australia has
traditionally had one of the strictest video game codes in the world.
Yep, Australia.
Don't believe us?
Well, it's true.
Among the games that have been banned at one point or another are the hits Fallout 3 and
Left 4 Dead 2.
Both games were deemed unsuitable for minors at a time when the highest rating allowed
by the government was MA15+.
Eventually, Australia bowed to pressure and created the R18+ rating for adult games, finally
allowing gamers to play these classics years after the rest of the world.
Those were just the latest gaming controversies, though.
In 2008, Silent Hill: Homecoming was viewed as too gory for teens, so it too was banned
outright.
And before that, Narc and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas both faced bans.
Weirdest of all, though, was the case of Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure,
which in 2006 was initially rated MA15+.
However, that ruling was appealed by the Attorney General, and the game eventually was banned.
Why?
Well, the board ruled that the game taught kids how to become graffiti artists, which
was promoting illegal activity.
Atari vice president of corporate communications Ryan Barr told GameSpot that the censorship
decision was on par with book burning, saying,
"Essentially they banned the game, which in our opinion is rather ironic considering that
the game takes place in a city with a tyrannical government that tries to suppress the freedom
of expression."
Take that, Australia!
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