WTF?! Moment of the Week - DOA:Dimensions Banned in Sweden! - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 23 May 2011 / 5,437 Views
This week’s WTF?! Moment takes us all the way to the frigid north, Sweden to be precise. It seems that in a few months' time, the game Dead or Alive Dimensions will hit the world with a wave of exciting 3D fighting, that is except for Sweden and possibly a few other northern European countries. “Why could this be?” one might be asking. Well, that’s a complicated story. The whole issue comes down to a very important and necessary child pornography law, and folks twisting it around due to hyperbole.
It seems that the whole problem comes from the fact that while playing Dead or Alive Dimensions, one can take full 3D snapshots of any of the fighters, in any pose, in any way possible. This is not so different from a similar option found in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, where a player could archive any image they wanted. The problem lies in the fact that three of the game’s well endowed fighters Kasumi, Koroke, and Ayane, are all “minors” according to their accepted ages via common knowledge and are protected under said child pornography laws.
Distributor Bergsala and Nintendo of Europe provided the following statement:
Nintendo of Europe have decided not to release the game in Sweden, for various reasons. However, they do not want to list any details regarding their decision. We are sorry for how this impacts the Swedish fans of Dead or Alive. Thankfully, it’s extremely unusual that these things happen.
The cancellation can boil down to a recent rash of court cases that have been hitting writers that churn out questionable and otherwise risqué material with minors involved. Many don’t want to be caught dead with this kind of criminal record, the court fees and other headaches, so many have just dropped the release of the material. One year ago, a Japanese manga translator was held under a pile of lawsuits for storing a multitude of most-likely questionable hentai pictures of his hard drive:
Last year, Lundström was convicted of possession of pornographic material after 50-odd Manga images stored on his hard drive were classified as child porn. The Swedish court of appeal later agreed that 39 of the illustrated images, none of which has been banned in Japan and none of which shows real people, fitted the definition of child porn. Lundström was fined 5,000 Swedish Crowns (£500). Meanwhile, his main employer, publisher Bonnier Carlsen, has stopped giving him translating commissions, and Lundström has been burdened with a reputation of traversing the biggest taboo of our time: getting off on kids. The case has now been appealed to the Supreme Court.
Should the game be banned or are the publishers just scared of getting sued?
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The next game the can put images with 0 bobbies and pubian hair but say their age is 21 and that would be ok?
A country with court cases more ridiculous than U.S. ... and to think that some years ago Porn Magazines in Brazil where called "Suecas" (Sweedens)
It's a fine line I suppose. A publisher should have confidence that the material it publishes is not child pornography, and it should have the stones to defend its assessment. But what companies actually do is look at the bottom line and decide whether they are likely to profit or lose if the worst case scenario happens, and what's the likelihood of worst case scenario. When it comes to a child pornography conviction the likelihood is loss of a lot of money (both directly and indirectly) and obviously they decided the risk of a conviction is quite high in Sweden and perhaps other markets. And they won't openly fight the law because what company wants to be painted as the one who wants to be able to peddle child porn? That's how it will be played in the court of public opinion.
S'funny really. On the one hand people here want gaming companies to succeed commercially, on the other hand they criticise when a company makes a commercially sensible decision. This sort of thing serves to remind everyone that the purpose of a company is to make a profit. It's products and services are purely the chosen means by which it achieves its purpose. Shit products and high profits > high quality products and no profit. Anything that risks profits needs to be eliminated. Hence no selling DOA Dimensions in Sweden.
You might not like it, but that's the commercial world we live in, and for the most part you like what the commercial world has given us. So suck it up and take the rough with the smooth. You want the law to be challenged? In this instance you'll have to make it a groundswell initiative; good luck with trying to liberalise a child pornography law.
sorry "assume" was a bad transcription of a French word. I basically said Nintendo should take its responsabilities and push core gamer content even if there's a bit of risk to its image.
men snälla nån.. medeltiden ringde och ville ha tillbaka sin moralism.
riktigt fattigt bergsala!
you guys think it'd been a different deal had the characters not been "well endowed"? :)
@ ryuzaki57 Can i have that in English, and not just some words you bashed into your keyboard.
Nintendo just got cold feet and couldn't assume a really good core gamer title. They should be ashamed!
The sad thing is, DOA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball and games like Soul Calibur IV, both of which focus a lot more on T&A than this game, weren't banned.
And they claim they're a progressive country. All I've seen in the last few years is more and more laws being added to the books.
Though ironically, I bet this stunt of 'banning' the game is going to cause more copies to be sold than it would have before. Both in and outside of Sweden.
lol why? i thought Sweden loved boobs and jiggling things... was not planing to buy it anyway though...
WHAT THE FUCK?
I was planning on getting that game if I got a 3DS :(
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Paranoic:P
"And their fully clothed for Christ sake I mean where does it end?"
It doesn't it's a cartoon for Christ sake and they are acting as if it was a real person that's really pathetic.
Creativity means nothing to some people it's not always sexual.
I bet anyone who has ever played Dead or alive would have thought they were atleast a minimum of 18 even though in america I believe the ages were listed as N/A.
I had just found out a while back that kasumi ( 17) Kokoro (17) and ayane ( 16) I was surprised but I didn't really think anything of it.
I mean they are not prepubescent so a pedophile would not be attracted to them or whatever so wtf. They look like grown women.
It's sad that a anime/video game character Ayane for example if you change her age to an adult it's okay but as soon as you drop it below 18 it's child pornography or child erotica that's ridiculous.
The fact that they would throw someone in jail and ruin there life because of a fictional drawing honestly makes me very very angry.
This has nothing to do with being prude
@MonstaMack: Don't know about the 3DS between countries in Europe, but it is at least region locked for NA and Japan.
This is absurd. I agree that child porn should DEFINETLY be illegal but a fictional game character being protected by the law is idiotic. I mean who is that hurting?
And their fully clothed for Christ sake I mean where does it end?
Those damned prudish Americans.
Isn't the 3DS region free? Just import a copy. Shh! No one will tell lol
