I've seen some weird reasons for video games getting pulled from shelves or outright banned in certain places. Let me tell you about some of the most notable ones.
The Guy Game
First up, let’s talk about the guy game. If you combine spring break with the game show, you get the guy game. It's a 2004 game that mixes trivia questions with real footage of women flashing their chests. You answer trivia questions and if you get it right, the woman on the screen shows her breasts. That's basically a video game Playboy Magazine with extra steps. Of course, while nudity isn't really banned in video games, the problem with the guy game was that it was like a frat party made by developers who couldn't sober up. It was a dull and lifeless trivia game where you're likely to have one hand on your meat and the other on the video game controller.
But that wasn't the worst part of the game. It turned out that one of the women in the game was under 18. America may be the land of the free where people don't mind it when women flash the goods for everyone to see, but that country draws a strict line between adults and children. And because anyone under 18 is still a child in the eyes of the law, that game quickly understood the meaning of the term barely legal. The woman sued the creators, and the court ensured the game got pulled out from shelves faster than expired milk. Stores quickly stopped selling it until the game disappeared. After the lawsuit, the game became famous for all the wrong reasons. Collectors hunted it down, not because it was good, but because it was banned and weird. Meanwhile, the people behind it quietly disappeared, probably realizing they needed to check everyone's birth certificate next time.
Pokémon Go
Remember Pokémon Go? It took the world by storm in 2016 because it's the closest you could ever get to a real life Pokémon experience. That means you can walk around town catching Pokémon, but instead of actual monsters sneaking up on you from tall grasses, you use your phone to track digital Pokémon. Essentially, it turned people into full-time pigeon chasers with smartphones. Suddenly adults were sprinting across parks, falling into fountains, and nearly getting hit by bikes just to catch a floating bat. It was like the world got possessed by a digital zoo.
That's when other countries took notice and decided it needed to be banned. Iran was one of the first places to ban Pokémon Go. They saw people wandering around with GPS turned on and cameras pointed at everything. It didn't look like gaming, but more like thousands of people taking a spy training course. That's why they banned the game; it made people look like they were trying to sneak into restricted areas with a phone, even though they simply wanted to catch a Shiny Pikachu. People were also wandering into mosques, not to pray, but to catch floating jellyfish with angry faces. The idea of a game leading someone into a holy place to grab a Gengar did not impress the religious leaders.
China also followed the trend, believing citizens shouldn't be catching pretend monsters near missile sites. Governments started thinking the app was less about fun and more about turning users into confused satellites. Imagine a Charmander sending you into a military zone – that's not a game; instead, that's how you get grounded by the entire government. And then came the injuries. Players fell off curbs, walked into poles, and even played while driving. Suddenly hospitals had to start treating poke-related injuries. In Indonesia, even police officers were told to stop playing during patrols. That's not ideal when the person chasing a burglar is also trying to hatch an egg by walking.
Pokémon Series
As Team Rocket says, prepare for trouble. Sadly, Pikachu got himself in bad trouble in a few countries when the main Pokémon series games got banned. You'd think these games are safe, but for some odd reasons, there were countries who thought turn-based battles between monsters and a lot of walking should be banned. Basically, the entire mainline Pokémon series focuses on games where you walk around the world catching Pokémon and battling other trainers. There's nothing wrong with that, unless you're Saudi Arabia, which quickly saw a few minor details in the game and decided it needed to be pulled off its shelves.
Saudi's reasons for banning Pokémon revolves around the game's gambling aspect. They said it promoted gambling, basically saying that "gotta catch them all" sounds a little too much like "gotta bet on them all." Yes, there are minor gambling aspects in the game because there are casinos, but that's a very small part of Pokémon, and you can even go through every game without visiting the slot machines. Still, according to Saudi officials, collecting monsters, trading them, and battling with other people was a bit too casino-like. That's why even Pokémon cards, toys, and anything related to the franchise were banned in that country. Anything that Pikachu touched got zapped by Saudi officials. They also mentioned something related to religion and how Pokemon had Zionist messages and symbols related to the Star of David. And because Saudi is strict when it comes to religion, anything that publicly went against their mainstream beliefs had no place in their country, leaving Nintendo losing billions of dollars from all those Saudi oil billionaires.
Iran also joined the party, but it's not because they thought Pokemon promoted gambling. Instead, it's because they think the games were part of a western cultural invasion. Even though Pokemon has always been Japanese, the game was a bit too popular that it was steamrolling over local culture. They didn't want their kids to be more interested in evolving their Charmanders instead of learning about local culture.
Mario Kart Tour
If you're a '90s kid who played video games on some of the earlier consoles, you'd have to work hard for your stuff. But these days, all you need is a credit card, just like in Mario Kart Tour, a game that uses the loot box system where you spend in-game currency or real money to get in-game items. Belgium saw this and decided this isn't how people should be playing video games. Mario Kart Tour is a racing game where you pick your favorite Mario character, hop in a tiny car, and throw turtle shells like you're in traffic with anger issues. The game is fast, fun, and chaotic, but Belgium couldn't look past the loot box system.
Loot boxes are like surprise toys, except they cost real money and disappointment is free. You can see a lot of games that use this system today. It basically makes a lot of money for the developers while convincing the players they're special if they get rare prizes in loot boxes. Meanwhile, in Mario Kart Tour, you launch a pipe to get a random prize. It might be a rare driver, or it might be the digital version of socks for Christmas. You keep spending in-game currency or real money hoping for the good stuff. Belgium saw this random reward system and said it looked a lot like gambling. The Belgian Gaming Commission realized that a game that involves paying money, getting a surprise, and chasing luck is more like a day in a casino. That's not a fun game mechanic; instead, it's more like your uncle spending his savings on the poker table. Eventually, game companies were told to either remove the loot boxes or pack their bags. But instead of doing so, Nintendo said nope. They didn't want to rebuild the game without the random prize machine that was the money maker. So instead of changing things, they just pulled the plug for the whole country.
Football Manager 2005
Forget being the athlete in a sports game. Instead, why not skip the practices, injuries, and sweating by going straight to the top as the coach? That's what Football Manager 2005 does for you. It sounds like a harmless game where you play as the coach, bossing around a bunch of digital footballers. It's a beautiful nightmare for every soccer fan who thinks they can do a better job than their favorite team's coach. The only problem with this game is that China saw a small detail and decided it was a bit too politically insulting for their taste.
There's nothing violent or gory about Football Manager, but China got offended because of a digital map. Yes, a map caused more chaos than a red card in the 90th minute of a gold medal match. That's because the game listed Taiwan and Tibet as separate countries. As the saying goes, God made the world, but the rest is made in China. This country is a bit too strict when it comes to ownership, believing that certain countries can't be independent because they've always been part of China. That's why the Chinese got offended when they saw how Football Manager categorized Taiwan and Tibet as countries independent of Chinese control. And China is like a strict history teacher who will fight tooth and nail to prove that the entire Asian continent has always been part of its territory. That's why they gave Football Manager the red card, banning it from their shores. Meanwhile, the developers tried to clean the mess up, afraid of losing millions of potential players from China. That's why they made a special version for China that matched all the country's official borders. It really makes you think about why games get banned.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Life is simple in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. You live on a calm island surrounded by animals that wear shirts but no pants. It gives you a sense of peace while interacting with animals, catching fish, planting flowers, and decorating your house like you're curating your Instagram page. In this game, you meet a raccoon named Tom Nook. He runs the island and helps you throughout the game while giving out loans that could trap you in an endless cycle of paying more loans than a student with six college degrees. But this cute economy simulator also became a political tool in 2020.
Players in Hong Kong used the game to protest against China, believing the country was supposed to be independent from the mainland. So they decorated their islands with banners and slogans using furniture and pixel art like rebellious interior designers. These players turned their virtual islands into digital picket lines. When the Chinese government saw that these little islands became a political tool against sovereignty over Hong Kong, they decided to deduct so many points from Animal Crossing's social credit that it was suddenly banned from China. No one believes a game could overthrow a government using garden decorations, but China wasn't taking any chances, especially when this government has never been friendly with anything that went against the political norm.
Hatred
If you had a rage room in the form of a video game, it would be Hatred. It's a game where you play as a grumpy guy who hates life and people more than Garfield hates Mondays. He puts on his black trench coat, grabs his guns, and heads out to ruin everyone's day. That's the entire plot, and it's also the reason why it's banned. Basically, you go out, kill everyone, cause trouble, and turn chaos into fun. As mentioned in that one Batman movie, some people just want to see the world burn. That's basically you in this game. You don't really win in Hatred; instead, you just last longer before getting taken down, which makes the game look like someone's last ditch effort to make as much noise as possible before getting on alive. There's no reward, no celebration, just more destruction. It's like someone made a game out of bad vibes.
Of course, a lot of games have shown similar violence and gore. You can take the Grand Theft Auto games as examples. But the difference between Hatred and those games is that there is no rhyme or reason for the violence in this game. You simply do it for the heck of it, instead of trying to complete a mission or save a damsel in distress. That's why it got banned in some countries. The point of the game is to cause mayhem for no reason, as if your goal is to win the award for worst human being in the world. The creators only made things worse by saying they created the game to fight against what they called "too much niceness" in modern gaming. So they went all in on the edginess, wanting to make a statement that the video game world needed pure chaos and violence.
Command & Conquer: Generals
Imagine making a video game so controversial an entire country with over a billion people decides to rage quit by banning it. And it doesn't even have anything to do with violence, gore, and sex. Instead, it just offended China's national pride. In Generals, you choose to command one of three groups. You can be Team USA with their shiny high-tech toys, team China bringing hordes of powerful tanks and endless soldiers, or the Global Liberation Army, which is basically what you'd get if Saturday morning cartoon villains got serious about world domination. Each group fights to control resources and crush enemies.
But the problem is that China wasn't thrilled about the game's portrayal of their army and country. It starts with one mission which had terrorists blowing up famous landmarks in Beijing, including the massive Three Gorges Dam. Destroying national treasures is a fast-track way to get yourself uninvited from a country's birthday party. Even worse, the game showed Chinese generals casually tossing troops into battle like you toss socks into a laundry basket. China didn't appreciate being shown as ruthless and careless; after all, no one wants to be known as the type who throws their teammates into battle faster than Stephen Curry throwing basketballs into a hoop. Then there's the Global Liberation Army, or GLA, who were troublemakers using sneaky tricks like suicide bombs, chemical weapons, and hiding soldiers in buildings. Basically, these were guys who didn't play by the rules. China feared this kind of gameplay could inspire real-life bad guys to copy tactics. That was not exactly the kind of educational gaming they had in mind.
China reacted swiftly by banning the game completely, making it illegal to buy, sell, or play. Shops caught selling pirated copies faced big fines. You'd think selling pirated video games wouldn't be your worst life decision, but in China, it's probably as bad as burning the national flag. EA Games, the creators, tried to fix things by releasing a special version just for China. They took out controversial bits and toned down everything offensive. This is the international version of apologizing with cookies after accidentally setting fire to your neighbor's backyard. Unfortunately, China had already made up its mind.
Hunter x Hunter: Nen Impact
A clown chasing little boys is actually a banable offense in some countries, and we're not talking about Pennywise from the IT movies. Instead, I'm looking at Hunter x Hunter: Nen X Impact, a 2.5D fighting game. This game is based on the popular Hunter x Hunter manga an animated series that follows the story of a young teenager and his friends as they work their way up the Hunter Association ladder. That means the game has all the charms of an anime. Yes, there are chaotic battles where everyone yells a lot and glows like broken neon signs. It's fast-paced, full of energy blasts, and could very well be the reason why you'd need a new controller.
The problem is that the game followed the anime a bit too seriously, even including a famously questionable scene. This involves an antagonist named Hisoka, a guy dressed as a clown who has a particular attraction to strong little boys. In the anime, there was a part where he got out of a bath in his birthday suit, flashing two of the main characters who were still minors. Australia already reviewed the game for its release, and that's when they decided to slam it with "refused classification." This is a fancy way of saying the game has no place in Australia, even when compared to other games that were classified as R18+. And it's all because the game adapted the same scene where Hisoka flashed some minors. Fans of the anime argued about whether this ban made sense because the scene was just part of the original anime. But because the scene isn't even an important part of the gameplay or the storyline, some fans think that Australia might get a toned-down version where adults don't need to show their naked glory to kids to make the game more interesting.
