Game Censorship Abroad

There has been an alarming new trend of non-US countries cracking down on games they consider too violent or sexual in nature. Most gamers are aware of Australia's relatively new stance on violence, drugs and sex in games. Many Australian versions of games have been reclassified as unfit for gamers under the age of 15, and some have even been modified to remove objectionable content, such as stripping the real-world drugs from Fallout 3. Germany regularly changes the content of games as it pleases, such as when the country only allowed the Germany-modified version of Call of Duty 4 to be purchased online. Now Venezuela is jumping on board, imposing a ban on violent games that would put distributers and manufacturers of banned games in prison for 3-5 years. This trend is alarming, for as more countries decide to impose stronger censorship on games, more companies will edit down their original games to fit foreign guidelines. It would be costly to create multiple versions of the same game with differing levels of "obscene" content, so instead the entire gaming world will get watered-down versions of games that were intended to be powerfully edgy; for example, the above-mentioned drug references in Fallout 3 were removed from every version of the game, not just Australia's. In my opinion, video games are a multimedia art form, and it is sad to think that potentially envelope-pushing games may end up like a Venus de Milo sans visible bosom - defeating the purpose entirely.