The world today is one giant political correctness machine gone mad, with most us just trying to make it through the day without offending anybody or getting into any headache-inducing debates that end in car park fist fights.
Right now, though, there’s arguably no subject quite so controversial – within the realms of popular culture, at least – than that of video game violence and its alleged relation to real-life crime. Video game violence polarizes opinion, of course, and banning excessively bloody games is just one way of dealing with the issues at hand (and for most governments, is considered a last resort).
Sometimes, though, video games get banned for the most bizarre reasons imaginable. Here’s 10 games that found themselves taken off the shelves and shipped back to the devils who programmed them for barmy reasons you might never have expected…
10. Pokemon Was Banned In Saudi Arabia For “Being Like Gambling”
Pokemon is one of the most popular franchises the world over. It’s big in both America and Europe, and it’s like some kind of crazed drug in Japan, though you’d be pressed to find anything related to its cutesy creatures over in Saudi Arabia: Pokemon in its entirety was banned there back in 2001 for “being like gambling.” Seriously.
Granted, the slogan “Gotta catch ‘em all” (surely a marketing man’s wet dream) might as well say “Keep buying things from us forever,” but we’re not exactly sure why the government in Saudi thought Pokemon was quite the same as gambling, given that there’s no way to profit from playing the video game version and – if you’re playing by the rules – trading pieces of cardboard with friends.
The Pokemon world is secretly hellish, yes, but that’s because everybody living there is bizarrely obsessed with Pokemon and nothing else. If the game was banned for animal cruelty (how small is it inside a Pokeball, really?), maybe Saudi would have a leg to stand on, but Pokemon is hardly a mini Vegas, is it?
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12 Comments
I’m confused by the Mass Effect ban (number 5). Was it just interspecies or lesbian interspecies romance? Because I’m pretty sure male Shepard could romance Liara in ME1, plus the entry goes back and forth between interspecies and same sex romance a lot.
Singapore banned it for the possibility of the same sex romance. I believe Tom is only pointing out how absurd that is in this article, because of the fact that Liara is a genderless alien. Still, I play as a female Shepard and I do like to think of myself a xenophilic lesbian. Oh, my beloved Liara. <3
There was a similar controversy which arose with ME3 if I remember correctly, the first game in which it was possible to pursue a male-male homosexual relationship with Kaiden Alenko. It seemed to cause much more of a fuss than the implied lesbian possibility with Liara or with Kelly in Mass Effect 2. It is "barmy". It is absolutely absurd! I'm just glad that most of the world is beyond such ridiculous notions. In a game series with xenophobia and racism as big themes, who the frell has stopped to have an objection to its romantic content? You can be a huge jerk throughout the series, objecting to the presence of aliens throughout, but God forbid you actually treat one with romantic compassion… Hatred of different beings is apparently fine, love of them is disgusting…
…what a world we live in.
What about cod mw2? That had a level which had favela was that banned or was everyone were concerned with no russian?
I was thinking the same thing. In fact I’m sure the picture used is the Favela from MW2
Most of those are pretty reasonable explanations. What makes them barmy?
What article are you reading? Greece banning all games is definitely balmy. Banning GTA for any entire country cause one insane person killed somebody is not reasonable. Neither is banning Pokemon, obviously that person has never played the game. Also the fact that China banned Footbal Manager for that reason is embarassing. Most of these are unreasonable and unjustifed – some of these countries have a long way to go.
that football manager section made me laugh, some of this stuff is unreal!
What in the hell does ‘barmy’ mean? Sounds English.
Yup. barmy means mental, bokers, stupid, mad etc.
Dude this is so hilarious. I don’t mean to sound too American, but I love it how all these bans are for some really bogus reason that only those other governments care about. I bet if we talked to the people (especially in Greece) they wouldn’t know/slash care about the issue at hand at all and would think their government was really stupid for banning it.
Some of them truly show just how out of touch some governments in the world are with the people they represent.
‘I don’t mean to sound too American’ says the guy with an American flag as his background. lol
would an out of touch country also be letting people die because they cannot afford medical treatment/insurance.
or a country where around 40% of the populous believe in the devil?
the USA is hardly a bastion of the modern day