Censorship

[vincenzo]

This is how the BBFC classify Games, and here's an interesting BBFC case study discussing their problems with Manhunt.

[SimonT]

Originally Posted by Peter Neal

That's one of their views which even over 2 decades of unconclusive research haven't been able to update to more commonly accepted guidelines in other EU countries.
Their crusade against "killer games and violent videos" has been on a dramatically rising return ever since the conservatives moved back into government.

The thing that makes a nonsense of such claims though is when you look at countries like Holland, which has NO censorship what-so-ever and films and games are classified and rated by the distributors themselves.

Surely, if all the old arguments about screen violence were true, they should have higher rates of violent crime and sexual assault compared to countries with more restrictive censorship. But the fact of the matter is they don't!

[vipco]

Originally Posted by vincenzo

This is how the BBFC classify Games, and here's an interesting BBFC case study discussing their problems with Manhunt.

Thanks for the links Vince. Very interesting stuff.

I agree with you totally DA, but even if the BBFC relaxed to the level of the Dutch they'd still be tied with laws like the OPA, etc to ever be 100% censorship free.

[Peter Neal]

Her's a link to a list with the cuts made to the German rental version of "Chaos", texts in German only. The rental version misses about 5:30 mins and the sellthrough, FSK approved version will miss an additional (!) 10 mins.

http://www.schnittberichte.com/schni....php?ID=769448

[Angel]

Yes surprise, surprise, that those 2 key scenes were subject to heavy cuts. They were 2 of the most violent scenes I've ever seen.

[Peter Neal]

The same label will also release the fairly gory "Carver" in February in Germany after all...with 3 mins of cuts to the rental version and a full 5 (!) missing minutes removed for the FSK approved sellthrough version....
Luckily, I have the UK DVD, which should be a must for those who like modern takes on the backwoods/slashergenre with a gorno makeover....

[KPWNINJA]

Speaking of the BBFC and the problems with Manhunt 2, I finally got around to playing the game and I can't for the life of me understand what their problem was.

I'm not going to compare the game to horror movies because it's an entirely different medium but when you compare it to the original Manhunt or even most modern games in the horror genre Manhunt 2 is tame in comparison.

The BBFC can defend their statement over and over again but at the end of the day they passed the first Manhunt uncut with no problems. I believe it had to do with external pressure.

[SimonT]

Originally Posted by KPWNINJA

The BBFC can defend their statement over and over again but at the end of the day they passed the first Manhunt uncut with no problems. I believe it had to do with external pressure.

Wasn't the version they eventually passed a 'toned down' version though?

[KPWNINJA]

Originally Posted by SimonT

Wasn't the version they eventually passed a 'toned down' version though?

They basically threw a filter over the 'executions' to obscure the animation and took one of the executions out completely.

[vipco]

They (BBFC) worked with the development team of "Condemed 2" from the start as there were 'elements' of the first game that 'concerned' them.
This was the first game were the BBFC were consulted with from start to finish by any games dev team as changing content of a finished game can be very time consuming and expensive.
Condemed 2 was released to poor press reviews, especially when compared to the original "Condemed" (The mood , that made the first game so compelling was complently missing) and this resulted in low sales figures and the game took only a few weeks to end up in most shops ' Bargin Bin ' with massive price cuts. ( £49.99 to £19.99 ) (PS3)

The BBFC dont know how to rate Games , all age restrictions concerning Games should be handled by PEGI as its recognised throughout Europe and it solely rates , not censors.