New Zealand Bans Rockstar Games' Violent Video Game "Manhunt"

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 12, 2003 - 5:17am.

Wellington, New Zealand -- The country of New Zealand has banned video game publisher Rockstar Games' ultra-violent PlayStation 2 title "Manhunt," calling the game "injurious to the public good." Similar attempts to ban the sale of violent video games in the U.S. have run afoul of First Amendment free speech protections. The game, developed at Edinburgh, Scotland-based Rockstar North, is the first video game to be outright banned in New Zealand. "It's a game where the only thing you do is kill everybody you see," said Bill Hastings, chief censor for New Zealand's Office of Film and Literature Classification, which imposed the countrywide ban. "The only way you can accommodate the game's images is by an attitudinal shift… You have to at least acquiesce in these murders and possibly tolerate, or even move towards enjoying them, which is injurious to the public good." Controversy is not new to the company, as earlier this week it announced it would remove the line, "Kill all the Haitians" from its "Grand Theft Auto" title after complaints from Haitian groups and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2F962BC6 http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=ret&aid=2707 http://www.take2games.com
http://www.rockstargames.com/manhunt