South Park Video Game To Be Censored Heavily Pirated Outside North America

[Mike]

South Park: The Stick of Truth, the much anticipated RPG personally devised by Trey Parker & Matt Stone to be virtually indistinguishable from an episode of the iconic TV show, has been very close to becoming vaporware over the years, especially when original publisher THQ shut down. But it was rescued by Ubisoft, and now has a firm worldwide release date of next week.

But... not entirely. Kotaku reports on a leaked review guide for the game in Europe noting that Ubisoft decided to remove several 20-second scenes and mini-games for the release in Europe, the Middle East and Africa:

It will surprise no one who knows the show that the scenes are very crass and, if you're a fan, probably executed in a hilarious manner:

This is of course not South Park's most famous censorship dust-up, given their epic battle with Comedy Central over depictions of Muhammad, but it may be the most utterly pointless, because it should be obvious what's going to happen: fans in those parts of the world are going to either pirate North American versions of the game or find videos of all the deleted parts online, or both. This decision is basically giving everyone in Europe, the Middle East and Africa a big reason to pirate by saying "sorry, we refuse to sell you the complete version of our game."

It's the sort of game where people are going to care, too. The game has a long and elaborate script, all read by Trey & Matt in full voice-performance mode, and as silly as the listed scenes might sound to someone who isn't familiar with South Park, they are likely to be integral parts of a well-crafted whole. And while it's getting attention from the gaming community at large, the majority of people buying it are doing so out of their love for the show, and are going to want the whole thing.

There's going to be an ironic reverse effect too: Trey & Matt are famous for making good use of censored elements in their shows, whether by covering them up with hilarious non-sequiter images or replacing them with text that seriously addresses the situation from the point of view of the creators. So customers who get the uncut version are likely to go seek out videos of the censored version, just to find out how the game handled it.

Of course, it's not easy to place blame in this situation — Ubisoft's decision is futile but may also have been necessary as part of dealing with various regulatory and ratings agencies overseas. It's just so amusing, but sad, to see people attempting to divide content between different parts of the world when we're already deep inside an era defined by global connectivity. On the plus side, we may get another hilarious South Park episode about piracy out of it.


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[Mike]

With the release of the latest South Park video game, titled The Stick Of Truth, we recently remarked on how silly the attempted censorship of the game will be for releases outside of North America. The reason, of course, is that the full version of the game is and will be available for download outside of the approved channels. While most of the censorship stories revolve around some of the more sophomoric jokes in the game, which I of course love, leave it to Germany to teach us how fickle the sensibilities of some governments are.

Apparently the game was supposed to be released in the land whose motto is "Unity and Justice and Freedom" this week, but that's been delayed because the game's publisher, Ubisoft, accidentally produced copies of the game for Germany that still include images of the Nazi swastika. Such images, as you might be aware, are verboten.

Users are posting on Steam's forums that the German (and Austrian) versions of the game have been hit with an 11th-hour delay. The reason? That those versions contain "an unconstitutional symbol", and mean the game's release in those two markets is TBA.

Let me say this first: I get you, Germany. The embarrassment over the systematic murder of an enormous Jewish, homosexual, and gypsy population isn't the kind of sting that goes away easily. But here's a piece of advice: limiting symbols and speech in this manner isn't productive and certainly isn't in the spirit of the 86a section of the Strafgesetzbuch. Attempting to limit humor regards to your own past won't get you anywhere. Open dialogue is what admonishes fascism.

Take Americans, for example. We straight up murdered tens of thousands of Native Americans and then had the balls to refer to our policy as our "Manifest Destiny." Now we have football teams filled with the decendents of African slaves playing under the moniker of our Native American victims so we can sell beer to everyone else. And, sure, when you really think about it that way, it isn't funny.

But South Park is funny, and anyone that really wants to see a swastika enough to put forth a little effort in Germany can do so via a myriad of avenues, including downloading illegal copies of The Stick Of Truth. A constitutional requirement to omit parts of your history won't do you any good and may no longer be useful to your society.



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