Dead Island: Riptide Creative Director Sebastian Reichert states on PC Games N:
“it feels [effing] awkward to have one of the most successful games in years and nobody in your country knows it. We have no censored version of the game, so we cannot release it in Germany. It feels fucking awkward to have one of the most successful games in years and nobody in your country knows it. There are laws that prohibit violence against human-like characters. It doesn’t matter what [the enemies] are, as long as they’re human-like then you have a problem. For Dead Island in particular it was a problem that you could attack the zombies when they are dead, because that’s mutilation of corpses. We even punish the player if he does it, because if the player tries to stab and slash everything that lies around him, his weapon will break and he’s fucked. We’re not even rewarding him, we’re punishing him for that stuff.”
Sebastian Reichert openly questioned the reasoning behind Gears of War 3′s apparently unimpeded release in Germany. ”At the moment I’m really confused that you can buy Gears of War 3 in stores in Germany, but not Dead Island. Because where’s the difference? I mean, [the enemies in Gears of War] are human-like, and they things you do to them… ah, they really have nice finishers! That flamethrower finisher, he rams the flamethrower into the body, pulls the trigger and the flames come out of every body part. That’s in stores.”
Author’s note: I just watched the end of the VGAs. I’m a little angry! Or in the words of Peter Finch in Network, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” I just went into rant mode and I apologize for making this less readable than it should have been.
This sort of reminds me of when Edward Norton and the cast of Fight Club was talking about the movie’s controversy on the DVD commentary track. Except in this case, it is done by a company that does not know how to write characters beyond a fifth grade level. (I know from personal experience.)
The Western ideas of freedom of speech, or freedom to express oneself has been influential to the human world. We as humans have an instinctive want to distinctively and clearly (although sometimes misunderstood, to) communicate. It is sort of what makes us unique to other species on this planet and for genetic dominance we want to display an expertise in this skill. The most popular films displaying this idea was 1968′s Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Some artists, like George Lucas have grand ideas, but have inabilities to express or organize them as seen in the Star Wars prequels.
Reichert believes himself to be Shigeru Miyamoto or John Carmack or the creator of GTA or Max Payne. He is not any of that; he is a retailer, a commercial “artist.” He specifically stated that he wanted the game released, because it was “one of the most successful games of the year.” He wants to distribute the game so he can profit. He could care less if others enjoy it or benefit from it culturally or not.
For example? I rented the game, put in the PS3. One second after playing it, I immediately hated it. I know, I’m picky, but if the game had a production cycle of five years, you figure they would have thought of a commercial way for it to appeal to as many people as possible. How did it have such a reaction from me?
The game had me first choose from the terrible jock character who drinks and curses out women. Then there was some bs story about having hit one with a car “unintentionally” to make him appeal to naive audience members who just want to use him because he is the standard Hollywood type jock.
With writing like this, there is no surprise from me that they originally named a skill Feminist Whore and claim it was a misunderstood joke, when experts such as me playing the game completely understood that their intent putting that in the game, as they Gary Sued themselves as the misogynistic jock.
A short Chinese girl from anti-Triad Chinese cops, whose expertise was sharp weapons. Why are their sharp weapons on this island? Why wouldn’t an anti-Triad officer, use a gun?
Oh and there’s a New Orleans rapper. What the heck is that? A rapper, from New Orleans? I suppose that is more creative, less Hollywood than the rest of those ill written characters, but it also sounds like a way for the creators to write on their resume:
- sold millions of dollars of rap albums
Why did they not plan ahead and make a censored version of the game? Censorship is not new in the world of gaming and has occurred for a long time. I believe it is time for Reichert to grow up, handle criticism and censorship better and make his company look professional instead of in the guise of stereotypical antisocial nerdery. There’s no surprise that this game came from the same immature company who created Call of Juarez.
How about you hoodoo your voodoo, b****?
