United Arab Emirates
In the United Arab Emirates, a branch of the government called the National Media Council (NMC) works to control the media and entertainment industry in the country, and they have the authority to issue bans on any specific media products, including video games, to comply with the country's legal and cultural values. The NMC do not usually explicitly state their actual consensus for any kind of issued ban on a product, so official reasons behind their bans remain unclear. However, bans issued by the NMC only applies for registered retailers to desist selling those products via their local outlets, and does not make it illegal to for anyone to privately own any said product. This acts as a loophole, allowing some retailers, including the local, major video game retailer Geekay Games, to continue selling banned video games via cyberspace (i.e. online shops), and the NMC does not strictly enforce their bans any further, but there are certain exceptions, notably for Spec Ops: The Line (see below). Banned games are sometimes also found in the nation's grey market.
The following (incomplete list of) titles are banned from physical retail circulations.
| Name | Reason |
|---|---|
| Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare | Banned possibly due to violence against Muslims. |
| Darksiders | Banned likely due to contradicting with customs and traditions. |
| Dead Island | Banned likely due to "extreme depictions of violence and scantily-clad game characters." |
| Dead Rising 2 | Banned likely due to violence, gambling, and nudity. |
| Dragon Age: Origins | Banned likely due to sexual themes, including having possible homosexual relationships. |
| Dragon Age II | Banned likely due to sexual themes, including having possible homosexual relationships. |
| Fallout: New Vegas | Banned likely due to gambling and sexual themes. |
| The Godfather II | Banned likely due to nudity. |
| God of War series | Banned likely due to high impact of violence, gore, and cruelty. |
| Grand Theft Auto series | Banned likely due to high impact of violence and cruelty. |
| Heavy Rain | Banned likely due to a sultry seduction scene. |
| Mafia II | Banned likely due to excessive violence and nudity. |
| Mass Effect 2 & 3 | Banned likely due to possible homosexual relationships. |
| Max Payne 3 | Banned likely due to excessive violence and sexual themes. Ban was issued roughly three weeks after official release date. |
| Red Dead Redemption | Initially banned, likely due to nudity. Ban later lifted circa two months after official release date. |
| Saints Row: The Third | Banned likely due to sexual themes, excessive violence, and for the use of drugs and alcohol. |
| BlazBlue: Continuum Shift | Banned likely due to suggestive and revealing outfits on some characters. |
| Spec Ops: The Line | Banned likely due to the game's fictional depiction of the U.A.E.'s real-life city of Dubai in a state of ravage and destruction. Unlike other banned games, the NMC had extended their focus for this title going far as to issue the TRA to block the game's official website and subsequently stop the title's distribution throughout the rest of the GCC, as well as Jordan, and Lebanon. Local retailers, such as Geekay Games, are not even able to sell the game via their online shops to U.A.E. residents. Digital distribution platform Steam does not offer the game in the region, although that is likely the publisher's decision. It is currently unknown whether the game would be available via PSN's official Middle Eastern hub. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Banned Video Games
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“The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control—”indoctrination” we might say—exercised through the mass media.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
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