New Zealand Bans Violent Video Game

from the you-just-made-it-much-more-popular dept

In one single action, New Zealand’s “Chief Censor” has just given Rockstar Game’s Manhunt more publicity than they probably could have bought. New Zealand is completely banning the game for being too violent. I don’t know anything about the game, and it certainly doesn’t sound like anything I’d want to play. If New Zealand wants to ban it, that’s their issue. My question, though, if the game is so dangerous that no one should dare be allowed to view it, how come the folks at the Censor’s office haven’t gone crazy shooting up the world? What makes them so special that they can view the game, realize it’s “just a game” and continue acting in a civilized way in the real world? How come they think that everyone else in the country doesn’t have that ability?


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Comments on “New Zealand Bans Violent Video Game”

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7 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

that's silly

Maybe I’m not familiar with how things are down in New Zealand, but my guess would be that the censor positions aren’t staffed entirely by kids. And I would imagine the grown-ups who work there decided that this game is too violent for kids. I think that’s sort of like the people who work on movie ratings. They might watch a movie and say, hey, this is a great porno, but I don’t think my three year old will appreciate it on quite the same level…

Anonymous Coward says:

.nz goverment vs. the rest of the world

Kiwi’s rule!

The New Zealand government has a long history of making silly decisions with repsect to the Internet.

The main difference between .nz government and everywhere else is that their list of silly decisions is far smaller.

…which proves a major conjecture of mine: smaller government does not necessarily mean better government; it just means less bad government (which pretty much obvious by inspeciton).

Anonymous Coward says:

I know what I want for Xmas

As an NZer this is damned embarrassing and pointless.
With the extra media coverage I can see the Aussie distributor doubled up & crying from laugter as he salutes the NZ govt over a cold beer at the Xmas company barbie (barbecue).
They have only successfully laid down a challenge for kids to get a copy. For no other reason but for bragging rights, it’s available in Aussie so every NZer has a friend, aunt, cousin or brother living there and guess what they want for Xmas.
Why not let the mums and dads sort this out with the kids, and if you old enough to use a condom then you probable can work it out yourself.

DarkPenpen says:

Re: Apparently this one _was_ simply distasteful

the whole thing that i find distubing about it is like what the first guy said that what makes these people so much more unsucceptable to this. i agree teens and kids are not necisarily dumb or easily brain washed it is the way that they were brought up. And by the way whoever said oooo only new zealand it is not true many things like this have occured worldwide such as in greece where they tried to ban all video games on phones and internet as well. Even happened in the USA with things like GTA three vicecity and the successful banning of THE HORSEMAN OF APOCALYPSE i am a fan of extremely violent games and i am 17 years old have a 3.9 GPA am in national honor society and taking college classes as a junior and shophmore.(proof along with my friends who play video games like me all the time, whom two have 4.0 gpa’s and many more with gpa’s of 3.8 or higher.) and i have not portrayed any public violence (except my brothers which i am sure that all of you or atleast most can agree with me that they derserve a good smack to the arm every once and a while) These are my feeling and i would like to hear yours please e-mail me at Sandberg_jacob@hotmail.com and write whether or not you would like me to use your responses for my college english paper.

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