Hey everyone and welcome to today's Censored Gaming recap!
First thing first, Australia has just assigned the new upcoming Senra Kagura game, Peach
Beach Splash with a rating and as we've not heard from XSEED about any cuts having to
be made, this means it should also be releasing in Australia uncensored.
However, that isn't the reason why it's being discussed today.
In fact, if you look at its rating description you'll notice that it's being given a certain
warning label that's appears to have never been used before.
This label being that the game contains "demeaning sexualised behaviour".
Censored Gaming has never noticed a game using this label before and I've researched and
asked others about this, and from the looks of it, this is a brand new warning that Australia
has started giving games and I thought that this would be something worth pointing out.
Sticking with Australia though, they have also recently assigned the Nintendo Switch's
Namco Museum with a PG rating and this is also something that's pretty notable.
You see, Namco Museum contains the classic game Splatterhouse, which is a title I'm sure
quite a lot of you have heard about before.
This is the original arcade version and not the PC Engine port, which had the violence
and other elements toned down, most likely due to platform limitations.
Now, Australia has given this a PG rating and has described it as only having "Mild
Violence".
However, not only could this be seen as notable due to how controversial the game originally
was, but, back in 2007, Australia gave Splatterhouse a M rating and described it as having "moderate
horror violence".
This M rated version was released for the Wii's Virtual Console and it was actually
a port of the toned down PC Engine version, which I mentioned earlier and is shown on
screen now.
Next up, I just want to mention a tweet Censored Gaming received recently that highlights an
issue that customers in Germany sometimes face on Steam.
Now, the first picture shows an advertisement for the Dead Rising series at the bottom right.
However, most titles in the Dead Rising series actually aren't available in Germany due to
the country's censorship policies.
So... what happens when a German user clicks on the link then?
And the answer to that is this - they'll see nothing but a blank page.
But to finish up for today with something very big and very important...
Criminal Girls: Invite Only has been banned in New Zealand.
This is the English release of the game, which had various changes made to it to prevent
exactly this sort of thing from happening.
Additionally, the game wasn't even submitted to the New Zealand Classification Office,
with New Zealand deciding to investigate the title on their own accord.
Also, the title is now over 2 years old, which makes this even more surprising.
You can read the reasoning behind the decision here, which is the official explanation form
the Classification Office.
I will also leave a link to the page in the description if you want to go check it out.
To summarise though, they somehow heard about the title and decided to call the game in
for an investigation due to concern over the characters ages and it involving non-consensual
activity.
And at the end it reads, to quote: "There is a strong likelihood of injury to
the public good, including to adults from the trivialisation and normalisation of such
behaviour, so the game is banned."
This is now the second game this year that has been banned in New Zealand, with Gal Gun:
Double Peace getting similar treatment back in January.
Like Criminal Girls, Gal Gun was also not submitted to the Classification Office and
they decide to investigate the title themselves.
From this, we can conclude that even if a game isn't given an official release in New
Zealand, it doesn't mean that the game can't be banned at a later date and so this is something
those of you located in New Zeeland should definitely keep in mind.
I had asked the Classification Office what this means for people who already own a game
that's been banned, back when Gal Gun's decision was announced, but their answer wasn't very
clear on the matter, with them stating: "It is now an offence for people to possess
the game in New Zealand, and users of Steam need to ensure that the game is not downloaded
on their PC or other device."
They also then said that it would be best to direct further questions to their "Censorship
Compliance Unit"... yes, New Zealand actually has a "Censorship Compliance Unit".
As always, Censored Gaming will continue to watch how things develop in New Zealand and
will be sure to report back on any new developments.
Until next time though, thank you for watching.
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