Games News

Lawmakers from Pennsylvania have introduced a bill that proposing an additional 10% sin tax on M (mature) and AO (adults only) rated video games.

The money would go into a fund called the Digital Protection for School Safety Account that aims to enhance security measures at schools in the wake of the school shootings in Parkland, Florida and Newtown, Connecticut.

State representative Chris Quinn, a republican first introduced the bill in 2018 but is trying again in the current session. Explaining the bill last year, Quinn said violent video games might be an element in the rise of school shootings in America. One factor that may be contributing to the rise in, and intensity of, school violence is the material kids see, and act out, in video games, he said.

The Entertainment Software Association, which lobbies on behalf of the video game industry, notes that the bill is a violation of the US Constitution.

C apcom's 2019 remastering of the 2001 action adventure game, Onimusha: Warlords has led to the revisiting of a censorship issue resulting from the original release.

Onimusha: Warlords was originally released uncut in Japan but was censored for the international version. A cutscene involving one of the bosses, Hecuba, was cut down from its original form. The scene was briefly snipped in the overseas release to avoid the slightly suggestive splaying of Hecuba's legs as she readies for transformation to a giant insect like demon. The abdomen of the insect then seems to emerge from between her legs.

It has been noted that the 2019 re-release contains both the censored and uncensored version. However the uncut version only appears if the selected language is Japanese.

China has ended a nine-month freeze on the release of video games implemented whist the country's censors were being reorganised. In March China decided to replace the government censors with a new organisation answering to the ruling Communist Party's propaganda department. It is widely feared that the new organisation will be even more censorial than the previous version..

The new censor has just passed its first batch of 80 titles, the majority of which are for mobile phones.

Chinese gaming executives told the newspaper they expect it'll take officials months to clear the more than 5,000 games that need approval -- and that censorship of the games would see a significant increase.