Nintendo's Reign of Censorship

By Special Contributor WillBillXP/Vista-YoshiX

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_policy
http://www.filibustercartoons.com/Nintendo.php
http://www.encyclopedia-obscura.com/
http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/june03/dumbestmoments/readers/index4.shtml
http://www.lostlevels.org/200407/earth-02.shtml
http://www.themushroomkingdom.net/mariosan.shtml

Before the Grand Theft Auto controversy, before the ESRB (Electronic Software Rating Board), before violence in Videogames issue was addressed in Congress, Nintendo had a solution themselves to preventing controversy: a reign of terror. This was the censorship of Nintendo. It began when the NES was launched in North America, and was only stopped about 5 years ago. A large part of the Kiddy Image came from the infamous policy of NOA. Today on In Depth, I take you through the history of what was ironically, one of the most controversial moves itself. However in order to understand why Nintendo of America established this policy, we must look at some history about the oldest games with explicit material.

Yes, you read that last sentence correctly; there have been violent/explicit videogames for years. In fact, the first true, major controversial game was a 1976 game entitled "Death Race." It was based on the movie of the same name, and was exactly like the movie: Run over Pedestrians to get points. The game is quite out-dated and is laughable today. Running over stick figures with a block-mobile would be E-rated in today's standards. However it was believed to be highly immoral in its time, seeing that you could "Simulate" Hit and Runs. It was a precursor for violent videogames to come. That was not where it stopped. There were other games that caused early controversy also. Have you ever heard of a game called "Gotcha" for the Atari 2600? It was a pornographic game that had these round and pink rubber balls that went over the Joysticks. Think of the nature of Joysticks, Yeeeeah, I think you might know where this is going. A company called Mystic released a series of "Pleasure" games for the Console. Of course, Stick Figures are probably not going to turn even the biggest perverts on. Games such as the ones mentioned above got the Publics attention. They were some of the first controversial games to be released, and they would not be the last. Perhaps these pieces of controversy helped spark Nintendo's interest in Censoring games.

We might wonder why Nintendo censored their games so heavily. There were multiple reasons, but I think that the main reason was to avoid Lawsuits. Perhaps you have heard of the NES's infamous story of how it was released in North America. Videogames were dead, so rather than advertising it as a Videogame system, NOA advertised it as a toy. Look closely at that though; there is a key word in there, "Toy." By marketing the NES as a Children's toy (Hence all the useless but lovable accessories such as ROB and the Power Glove) Nintendo was able to revive the gaming industry in North America. However there was a severe side-effect to this: since it's a Toy, it has to be for everyone, especially kids. I'm sure parents wouldn't want their children to be playing with "naughty" toys, now would they? There would be severe lawsuits and criticisms from senators such as maybe, Joe Lieberman, or worse, angry Parents and Lawyers. Marketing a System as a Toy and releasing it with Adult games would have been a very bad idea. Perhaps this is the main reason that Nintendo established their policy. While Nintendo's strategy worked for a while, it had a very fatal error in it. The children who played NES and SNES as kids grew up. When they grew up and had enough sense to know that there was more than Nintendo, they realized what Nintendo was up to. Mortal Kombat was perhaps one of the worst revelations for Nintendo's unconstitutional acts. From that point on, Nintendo's policy was gradually relaxed. In some ways, Nintendo still censors games to this very day. The policy was established for good and backfired by playing a huge role in Nintendo earning the Kiddy Image.

Despite the policy being ridiculed by fans and game publications, it was actually quite organized and very specific. Below is the exact copy of the policy as of the release of the SNES. Keep in mind that this is very old and does not apply to games today.


"Nintendo of America's priority is to deliver high quality video game entertainment for our customers. When those customers are children, parental involvement in their game playing is recommended. Nintendo is concerned that our products do not contain material that society as a whole deems unacceptable.
Consequently, since 1988 we have consistently tested the content of all games developed for Nintendo systems against our evolving game standards. As our business has matured, we have adapted our guidelines to meet the concerns of the members of our target age group and their parents. Although we realize that definitions of social, cultural and political views are highly subjective, we will continue to provide consumers with entertainment that reflects the acceptable norms of society.
The following Game Content Guidelines are presented for assistance in the development of authorized game paks (i.e., both Nintendo and licensee game paks) by defining the type of content and themes inconsistent with Nintendo's corporate and marketing philosophy. Although exceptions may be made to preserve the content of a game, Nintendo will not approve games for the NES, Game Boy or Super NES systems (i.e., audio-visual work, packaging, and instruction manuals) which:
. include sexually suggestive or explicit content including rape and/or nudity; (1)
. contain language or depiction which specifically denigrates members of either sex; (2)
. depict random, gratuitous, and/or excessive violence; (3)
. depict graphic illustration of death; (4)
. depict domestic violence and/or abuse; (5)
. depict excessive force in a sports game beyond what is inherent in actual contact sports; (6)
. reflect ethnic, religious, nationalistic, or sexual stereotypes of language; this includes symbols that are related to any type of racial, religious, nationalistic, or ethnic group, such as crosses, pentagrams, God, Gods (Roman mythological gods are acceptable), Satan, hell, Buddha (7)
. use profanity or obscenity in any form or incorporate language or gestures that could be offensive by prevailing public standards and tastes (8)
. incorporate or encourage the use of illegal drugs, smoking materials, and/or alcohol (Nintendo does not allow a beer or cigarette ad to be placed on an arena, stadium or playing field wall, or fence in a sports game); (9)
. include subliminal political messages or overt political statements (10)"



As you can see, this policy was more than just as "Change it cause I don't like" type of censorship. It was standard and followed ALL game to appear on NES, SNES, and Gameboy. Nintendo's other licensing policies at the time were generally unfair to unknown publishers. They played favorites and made several enemies with rookies back in the 80s. However there was one single policy that Nintendo did not play favorites with, and that was censorship. Anything, weather it be 1st or 3rd party material, was changed if it violated any of this. Okay, so nothing sounds too offensive, right? Well, perhaps the way Nintendo treated this policy was a bit too serious. Every-Day things such as cathedrals in Earthbound became "Chateaus" because they violated rule number 7. In a similar way, the Red Medical Cross was removed from 1st aid kits in games because it was a cross. In "Secret of Manna," the "Hell Hound" enemy was changed to the ridiculously named "Heck Hound." Religious images, as you can see, were clearly the silliest things to be edited out. Some games, such as the very Dark "Sweet Home" for the NES were never even released on Western Shores because of their graphic content. Maniac Mansion for NES had some dialogue and images removed for the NES release. The WORD blood was removed from Final Fantasy IV. In Punchout, the Russian Boxer "Soda Popkenski" was origonally "Vodka Drunkeski." However these were minor and wasn't where Nintendo got exposed. Changes of silly things such as this weren't really that controversial among publications though, and went un-noticed for quite some time. It was the other parts of the policy that caused controversy. This brings me to two major exposures: Mortal Kombat and Wolfenstein 3D.

Wolfenstein 3D and Mortal Kombat were both completely different games released around the same time, with one thing in common; they were two prime examples that exposed Nintendo's censorship policy. Wolfenstein 3D (commonly abbreviated to Wolf 3D) was censored among the other Ports. In most versions of the game, you storm a Nazi Castle on a mission to foil their evil plans. The game had Swastikas littered all over the castle, and portraits of Hitler were everywhere. The Nazis were considered a racial group and simply had to go. Many publications criticized this version of the game for ruining the theme and making it feel like a completely different game. Along with that, all blood (despite it being fairly cartoonish and mild looking) was removed. Also, the Guard dogs were replaced with Giant Rats. Go figure that last one out. The SNES version of Wolf 3D made Nintendo look like a company for children only that couldn't handle some mild violence. However Wolf 3D is nothing compared to the Mortal Kombat issue. I'm sure most people know of the story behind the toned down fatalities and grey sweat. However the reason this is move is so infamous is because it is what exposed EVERYONE to Nintendo's policy. Sure, there were ridiculous things such as calling a "Bar" a "Café" and changing "Beer" to coffee, or removing the word "Kill" in any game, but these were minor and overlooked compared to Mortal Kombat. The blood looked like sweat, and there wasn't even a hidden cheat code to access it. The gory fatalities that made the game so popular in the arcade were toned down so much that it made the game feel "Wussifed" (Gamespy, 25 dumbest gaming moments). It wasn't long until the "Blood and Gore" Cheat code for the "Inferior" Genesis version was discovered. Despite the Genesis having worse graphics, the fatalities were in it, and that is all that mattered. The irony behind this story was that according to Howard Lincoln (former Nintendo Representative) "Instead of getting a lot of letters back from parents praising our position, we got a huge amount of criticism -- not only by gamers, but even by parents saying that we had set ourselves up to be censors." From this point on, the policy was slowly and gradually relaxed.

Even with the ESRB established, Nintendo continued to censor games, at least from a 1st party standpoint. 3rd parties have generally been more relaxed since then. Doom for example, on SNES, had all the graphic death animations in it (the satanic references were toned down however. This was probably to avoid complaints from Nintendo's own office from religious groups however, and was possibly voluntary). 1st parties continued to be censored though. Look at Super Mario RPG and Earthbound. In Super Mario RPG, Bowser's winning pose had a "certain" offensive gesture that was removed for the US release. Earthbound, like its unreleased predecessor "Mother" (it was un-released due to marketing issues, not censorship) had some heavy changes. More recent examples include Paper Mario, The Thousand Year Door being edited. In the Japanese version of the game, Vivian is a Male that acts like a Woman. All the dialogue and actions (Kissing Mario O_o) were IN that Japanese release. Rather than changing the Dialogue, NOA's localization team simply made Vivian a Female character. The first party changes are simply meant to give certain Games an "E" rating from the ESRB. First Party censorship for winning the E is the only form of Nintendo Censorship that exists today.
The weird thing about the censorship of 3rd parties was that it technically didn't stop until 2003. Handhelds were still censored for a long time. In Mortal Kombat II for Gameboy, the blood was removed. The fatalities were still in that version of the game though. Go figure that one out. Metal Gear Solid: Gaiden had the cigarettes in it removed for the USA release. The GBC version of GTA II was edited and received nothing more than a T rating from the ESRB. The last example was Doom itself. This little portable version of the cult classic was very well preserved on the GBA, perhaps better than some old Home Console versions of the game. However there was one major thing that it left out: The graphic violence. The blood was recolored green, the enemies disappeared from the stage within seconds, and all the demons were changed to Aliens to avoid any satanic references. With that said, Nintendo continued to censor everything on its handhelds. It kept its tradition for almost 20 years. However M rated games on their handhelds such as Max Payne, GTA Advance, and Resident Evil Deadly Silence (a DS game) suggest that Nintendo is no longer interesting in censoring at all.

The rise to emulation in the late 90s showed how laughable the changes in the classic games were. It was an embarrassing revelation, and is probably one of many reasons to why Nintendo has a Zero Tolerance policy on emulation. These discovered changes made the gaming community very mad. It's a good that Nintendo doesn't continue their policy anymore, otherwise, the Internet would explode with angry petitions against it. The lightness of all the nostalgic classics was released in Nintendo's Golden Age. Yet little did all the Children, Parents, and Gamers know that they were secretly living in a Dark Age. Censorship is an ugly thing. The very thing that Nintendo tried to do to avoid controversy and criticism backfired drastically. It is perhaps one of the most ironic stories to grace not just the gaming world, but the world in general.

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Thanks to friend of the site, WillBillXP for submitting this great editorial!

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