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I tried to remove the following from the article (under a different IP address), but my edit was reverted:
These strict guidelines allowed localization staff in those regions to freely eradicate all references to violence, death, politics, the Holocaust, homosexuality, most religious references, and mature content for more than a decade in video games released for Nintendo systems in North America and Europe. Roman and Greek gods were the only exception to the strict North America guidelines against religion in video games. By following a set of draconian procedures similar to that of the Hays Code and the National Legion of Decency that censored early American cinema, American and European censors generally emasculated 8-bit and most 16-bit games. Japanese games were more like PG-13 and R-rated movies; American and European games were the equivalent to G and PG-rated movies.
It was not until the establishment of the ESRB ratings system in 1997 that finally persuaded Nintendo of America to relax their censorship policy. While Nintendo's North American and European departments still self-censors their games, the censorship is done due to image reasons rather than preventing moral outcry among parents. For example, Japanese Wii games do not work on Wii console systems that were purchased in North America or Europe due to a regional lockout chip. This implanted chip prevents North American and European gamers from playing "uncensored Japanese Wii games" on their system and forces them to purchase games from their local retailer. The implanted chip also has the side effect of discouraging people from importing video games from other countries.
This seems off-topic in terms of the article, which should be about the game itself, not the history of videogame censorship, and also reads somewhat like a rant. Could a reason please be given as to why this was removed? Thanks. 71.57.172.38 (talk) 16:58, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I have decided to voluntarily remove the rant. When comparing this English Wikipedia article to the Japanese Wikipedia article, it had more information and no ranting about the lack of censorship that is typical in Japanese games of that time. So I decided to remodel the entire article to closely resemble the Japanese article to the best of my ability. If you object to me removing the rant, just tell me and I will find a place to put back in the "rant." GVnayR (talk) 04:28, 10 November 2008 (UTC)