According to megamers, a Middle Eastern gaming site, Heavy Rain has been banned from the United Arab Emirates. While this is likely due to the sexually explicit content included within the PlayStation 3 blockbuster, it’s kind of hard to imagine that the game is allowed in Australia, but not there (considering we all know how terrible the Australian government is with banning/censoring video games).
Kotaku posted a response from Sony this morning in regards to why the ban took place. We’ve included it below, but you can check out the full story from Kotaku here.
The UAE’s National Media Council (NMC) has banned Heavy Rain on PlayStation3. Heavy Rain has an 18+ PEGI rating and has been conceived from the earliest stages as a genuinely adult experience. This means that it deals with strong content including blood and nudity, but treats this content in a mature and sensitive manner. The game is not intentionally controversial or sensationalist, and all the themes and content are consistent with what consumers would expect to see in a mainstream Hollywood thriller.
It doesn’t give any solid answer, but we’d imagine it’s definitely the sexual content as previously stated. This is also the second game this year to be banned from the UAE, the first being Darksiders.
Do you guys think government, regardless of whose government it is, should be able to ban a form of art like video games? Let us know below.
Damn, that sucks. But the PS3 is region free so they will still be able to play it.
Thats bad news even if they buy it from any other place then they could get caught and who knows what they make them do
Ohh that is bad… But I think is just stupid to ban games. They also banned Modern Warfare 2 in Russia because of the mission in Modern Warfare 2 ” No Russian”. But I mean is just a game.
Some people take this videogame stuff WAYY too serious. I wonder if God of War 3 will be banned too lol.
Thank god ps3 is region free so people dont miss out on these great games
Even though the game is banned people already got hands on it here in Saudi Arabia including my self and am loving the experience same thing happened with GTA IV but we got it, another game is about to get the same treatment in the middle east its God Of War 3… Either way I’m getting It…
i can understand why mw2 got banned in russia as people may get affended but i think its stupid that heavy rain is banned in australier
I’m not sure what their stance is on video games as a whole but I always think it is silly when you have stuff that is much more offensive, across all media for that matter, that is almost spoon fed to us from an early age. Here, you have what, an exposed breast maybe? Or maybe some other nudity scene. How is that more offensive than someone’s head being blown off, hijacking cars for fun or beating prostitutes to death? I’m sure you get the point (and yes it’s been brought up a lot) but people just exaggerate it far too much. As the article states, this is definitely used a lot more maturely than most games on the market and not simply done for the shock factor. Of course I’ve yet to play the game so my whole opinion on Heavy Rain may change :p (1 more day!)
Banning games (Or films and books for that matter) is stupid. They limit people’s choice to plar or not to play the game.
I thought the UAE was just as bad if not worse than AU. Didn’t they ban Pokemon because of religious symbols allegedly in the game?
Is there any evidence of them banning movies with nudity/intense violence? If not I see no reason why Heavy Rain should be banned. Also, isn’t it optional (the nudity in the night club) with how much clothing to take off?
P.S. I’m calling it: Madison Mars and maybe Lauren Winter will be Lauren Shelby. I could be totally wrong though.
@SpiderJ95
Optional or not, I don’t think it really matters. Heck, that hot coffee mod thing was even more shut off than it being totally optional and look at how that got handled. Weren’t some stores threatening to not sell the game at all unless Rockstar actually removed it from newer copies of the game?
LOL and its not banned in australia
What a sad, sad world we live in.
That really does suck but at least you can import the game. =)
Wow that kinda sucks, I’m surprised that its not banned in Australia yet. Also I don’t think the government should ban games ( Except for the case of MW2 in Russia), I mean there was no hate crime involved as well, the parent of a child should be responsible for checking the ESRB ratings on the case. If a person is 18+ then it should be genuinely fine for them
I believe that there wont be any problem at all, as i have been there and bought my PS3 2 years back for $300 quiet a bargain for 60 gb launch model, as far as import copies are concerned they are easily available at any shopping mall and that too at around $40. so not an issue
meh, importing it isnt too much of a big deal…the UAE has always been a pain in the ass about things like this
This just solidifies how awesome Sony were for making the PS3 region free.
Too bad people in the UAE won’t be able to play Heavy Rain unless they import it. The Heavy Rain game is a great Sony exclusive game and they are missing out on getting to play the game.