Opinion by Matt S. “There’s a huge amount of academic research internationally that tells us what we see in entertainment content does influence our attitudes and values, and from there, our behaviours.” This is a quote from New Zealand’s Chief Censor, Andrew Jack, in response to the latest controversy around…
Read MoreThis week we have one of the DDNet team, Brad, on the show to talk about his hands-on experience with the Nintendo Switch, following a media hands-on event thrown by Nintendo. Finally, we talk about censorship, after discovering that Gal*Gun: Double Peace has been banned from sale in New Zealand.…
Read MoreNews by Britta S, Matt C, Welcome to Digitally Downloaded’s regular catch-up news feature. With each issue we will bring you the best news that you may have missed. Grab the biggest mug you’ve got, fill it with your favourite brew, and catch up with us (and our favourite news…
Read MoreReally Freaking Annoyed by Matt S. Only a couple of weeks after the Australian Classification Board decided to get ideological and ban MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death for utterly arbitrary reasons, the puritans are at it again and have now refused classification to Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkuni. Related reading: My report on…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. Not long ago there was the unfortunate news that a Compile Heart game had been Refused Classification in Australia, effectively banning it. Not many people seemed to complain about this. Not that many outlets even really reported on it, beyond a very flat statement-of-fact. And on…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. So, Australia’s delightful censorship bureau, the Classification Board, has struck again, and once again it has struck a tiny Japanese game that was not going to offend anyone. This time around it is Idea Factory’s MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death; that has been refused classification (the dreaded…
Read MoreDespite the superb sales figures, the recent Fire Emblem game has been the subject of some incredibly fierce controversy. The reason for that controversy is that Nintendo, when localising the game, decided to engage in some self-censorship of the material, removing some parts of the game, and changing the dialogue,…
Read MoreI think I annoyed a couple of my followers on Twitter today. A lot of people forwarded on the news to me that the director of Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 has formally announced that the game would not be released in the west, citing concerns over the reception that…
Read MoreOne of the more odd things that I’ve been reading about the Australian games industry over recent months is the assumption that many seem to have that in adopting the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC), we are going to have a “fix” to Australia’s issues with classification and censorship. Related…
Read MoreIt looks like Apple is pulling any games it can find that feature the Confederate flag from its App store. But we’re not talking about racist games that heroise the flag or anything like that. We’re talking about historical wargames about the American Civil War that need to use the…
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