Blood has been recolored black, smoking and "vulgar language" removed from cutscenes.
StarCraft 2 will have its content censored when it is released in South Korea later this year.
Korean e-sports website FOMOS reports that changes made include coloring the in-game blood black, along with the removal of smoking references and "vulgar" language.
According to a translation of the article by Team Liquid forums member gngfn, Blizzard submitted the new build on May 11, after an earlier version received an adults-only rating by The Games Rating Board.
The new version will receive an Age 12 rating, expanding the game's potential audience drastically.
"Since StarCraft 2 was originally developed to be a game adolescents could enjoy, we're very pleased with the Game Rating Board's decision," said Blizzard, via the translation. "In the remaining time until StarCraft 2 goes on sale, we'll do our best to continue to perfect the game so that even more fans can enjoy it."
The article goes on to say that Blizzard is considering releasing a separate adults-only version of the game with all of the offending content intact, but a decision has not yet been made.
Korean players of the original StarCraft have been in the headlines lately, as a betting scandal involving the nation's top professional players has led to the arrest of at least sixteen people.
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Sucks but it doesn't sound like too big of a change. Black blood instead of red blood might be harder to see on creep though.
In terms of censorship laws, the same will probably be true for China. I hope Blizzard hits two birds with one stone here, as otherwise it'll delay the release of SC 2 in that censorship-heavy country for at least a year.
It's good that Bliz has given in since it would suck if the koreans didn't have the same access to the game as everyone else. SK and China aren't going to give in over some video game.
Didn't the exact same thing happen to Brood War though? And they changed it back to the original after some time. I remember hearing about some version with green blood anyway.
Kespa is believed to be in league with the Korean government, and some suspect that it was Kespa that contributed to the decision, though there is no proof. The reason people suspected this is because Korea is usually not that anal when it comes to censorship. It's not China, where the censors banned WOTLK because of the undead "showing skeletons and organs." But it could be that the new ratings board has just become more strict. Adult-only for drug-use and blood & gore is not totally incomprehensible - it is something that could very well happen if the moral conservatives were running the US. The problem is when double standards are applied.
Not a fan of censorship, but blood and badwords are not worth an adult rating :D Tbh, theyre not vital to the spirit of SC anyway, so its not a big loss.
On May 21 2010 08:47 TelecOm1 wrote: oh my god lol thats so ridiculous, come on KeSPA T_T
This sir, has nothing to do with KeSPA, KeSPA doesn't want Starcraft 2 in Korea as they want to continue and control SC:BW as they are making a decent amount of money on them, at first glance I thought it was KeSPA paying the Korean government's game rating company to give it an A rating to try and minimize the sales in Korea for Starcraft II, To my surprise it was the game ratings bringing it down and they are going to just "censor" it in Korea, this will not affect sales so much, might even bring a much younger audience.
Man, I hope they changed this in a ridiculously easy way so people could still enjoy it. Say... an .ini file with something stupid like "Blood Color = Black" and "Language Filter = On" just so koreans can enjoy the game as it is, feel bad, hate censoring.
One thing to note: adult-only ratings aren't necessarily restrictive. At least in the US, ESRB ratings are more like guidelines for parents than alcohol laws. I'm not sure how things are done in Korea, though; I have heard that you need to input your SSN in order to get onto certain gaming services, so that might be a big deal if you're a minor.
Yeah, cause if you color it black instead of red, the kids won't know that it's blood. The marines are clearly full of oil, despite looking like people on the outside. The sheer idiocy of moral crusaders just astounds me sometimes.
This happens all the time, come on. Like when GTA was pulled off the shelves because of some titties? While the entire point of that game is to be a criminal, THATS what pushed it over the edge? People will always shove their morals down other peoples throats, this at least seems better than an adult only game.
Black blood? That sounds pretty sweet . . . but stupid. Still, I suppose it's good for e-sports to be more open, but I wonder what it actually looks like in game. Hopefully it doesn't mess too much with visibility.
On May 21 2010 09:07 Cri du Chat wrote: Black Blood. Reminds me of the german version of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn. That had black blood too. I feel for the poor Koreans.
The German version of Team Fortress 2 has gears and sparks pop out when people die. They're robots! It all makes sense!
I found it pretty bullshit that a game can go directly from 18+ to 12+ with just several fixes. Most games that are 18+ can't go to 12+ without fundamental changes. It clearly showed that the initial adult rating was too much.
Assuming that KeSPA is behind all this, the censorship requirement is absolutely ridiculous if you see the variety of games that Koreans like to play. Plus, alienating yourself from the rest of the world (by creating an "us versus them" mentality and diminishing the image of SC2/Blizzard in Korea) will just disadvantage Korea for the SC2 scene.
SC2 is the next big thing, and Korea and KeSPA already has a LOT to gain from it. So why be too greedy and deny yourself anything at all?
its alot better than before at least still its retarded how it goes from adult only to 12 lol they should have just said it at a middleground of like 15 or so imo
On May 21 2010 09:28 MorroW wrote: its alot better than before at least still its retarded how it goes from adult only to 12 lol they should have just said it at a middleground of like 15 or so imo
I've not heard about 15. It's 16+. That's what is written on my original SC+BW.
I'm not sure how it is in Korea, but, here in Toronto, every Korean I see is a social chainsmoker. Maybe they got depressed when they got here and picked up a pack of smokes.
On May 21 2010 09:25 tyCe wrote: LOL, so what will KeSPA pull out next?
Assuming that KeSPA is behind all this, the censorship requirement is absolutely ridiculous if you see the variety of games that Koreans like to play. Plus, alienating yourself from the rest of the world (by creating an "us versus them" mentality and diminishing the image of SC2/Blizzard in Korea) will just disadvantage Korea for the SC2 scene.
SC2 is the next big thing, and Korea and KeSPA already has a LOT to gain from it. So why be too greedy and deny yourself anything at all?
KeSPA has to listen to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism also. yeh big conspiracy going on here. &_&
On May 21 2010 08:48 Azarkon wrote: In terms of censorship laws, the same will probably be true for China. I hope Blizzard hits two birds with one stone here, as otherwise it'll delay the release of SC 2 in that censorship-heavy country for at least a year.
Probably not. If they think SCII has some hidden anti-communist propoganda, they'll censor the entire game itself, but otherwise China doesn't give enough of a crap.
On May 21 2010 09:02 Generico wrote: Yeah, cause if you color it black instead of red, the kids won't know that it's blood. The marines are clearly full of oil, despite looking like people on the outside. The sheer idiocy of moral crusaders just astounds me sometimes.
the germans have this problem since a long time and it seems that switzerland gets hit by them too in the future.
On May 21 2010 09:34 Necrosjef wrote: Doesn't make a massive difference what format it is released in.
If its 18+ then people under 18 will simply get an adult to buy for them or buy online and lie about age.
Makes no difference.
It was never a question of whether or not the youth of SK could get a hold of the game or not. People would get it no matter what rating it was. The problems lies in the A rating preventing tv coverage from happening and ruining the popularity of SC2 and kespa attempting to "cockblock" blizzard from getting Sc2 going in Korea, where BW was their only cash cow and they couldn't profit from SC2.
It not censorship as in "you can't sell this game here unless you get rid of this stuff". Its "we don't think its appropriate for minors to play this game". Blizz didn't have to get rid of anything if they were content with it being rated for adults only.
Its amazing how stupid people who are in charge can be. This is just like when germany redid the box art for left 4 dead to have an intact zombie hand instead of a party decomposed zombie hand, or like how in world of warcraft in china apparently all the icons in talent tree's and spellbooks that had skulls in them were changed to bags -.-
I mean seriously, some kid playing world of warcraft is going to put a talent point in lava holocaust or whatever and then notice that omg the icon is a scorched skull! DESTROY! DESTROY! MUST GO ON KILLING SPREE!
I just don't see how to whomever pushes changes like this through it makes sense that sure, it is fine that starcraft 2 is about killing the other guys army, as long as the blood is not red that shit is over the line. So death is fine, red blood is not. You basically want to teach kids that murdering someone with a knife which leaves icky bloodstains is bad, instead you should make sure to use electricity or poison when you kill someone.
Ratings are necessary, its just different standards in different countries. You can make similar arguements for R-rated movies, I mean 10 year old kids are probably finding porn online at some point so why bother r-rating these movies? The worst one in America is probably the drinking laws, no drinking or going to casinos before 21 or something? I mean honestly does anyone even follow that? People like me laugh at this when we are happily drinking and gambling here at 18. I mean honestly 18 years old being legal drinking age is still really high.
Laws and regulations are put in place to show that the governments at least cares about stuff like that. Don't judge censorships/product ratings in other countries, every country have their own traditions.
On May 21 2010 09:07 Cri du Chat wrote: Black Blood. Reminds me of the german version of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn. That had black blood too. I feel for the poor Koreans.
The German version of Team Fortress 2 has gears and sparks pop out when people die. They're robots! It all makes sense!
I stopped playing TF2 when they patched it so you cant bloodpatch the german version anymore. Soooo utterly stupid. Made the game horrible.
I kinda think black blood is cool tho And its not too big of a deal. I bet you can still get the english version pretty easy if you are an adult. I think blizz did a good job here.
On May 21 2010 08:59 sushiman wrote: There was far more blood in BW, and there were cutscenes/units smoking. Seems a bit odd. Maybe the 3D graphics makes a difference.
Korean version of BW was also censored initially with discolored blood, etc.
The article goes on to say that Blizzard is considering releasing a separate adults-only version of the game with all of the offending content intact, but a decision has not yet been made.
Yay for separate offensive material!
But in all seriousness it makes starcraft II sound like such a dirty game @_@...
Excessive swearing, blood and gore in videogames are overrated. Lets face it, who gives a damn how your marine can explode into a fountain of blood, I'm more focussed on microing them to prevent it ;p Nor do I fistpump and go "HELL YEAH BRO, did you see me targetfire that unit and put him full of holes?" while slamming an empty beer can into my forehead whenever I kill a unit.
I can't believe so many people actualy care about this stuff. I would'nt mind if dead units just fell on the ground without any blood. And if it helps to make the scene bigger (and Koreans are absolutely essential for SC) it's a good change.
On May 22 2010 00:25 Martijn wrote: Excessive swearing, blood and gore in videogames are overrated.
EPT
