Because video games don’t have the artistic weight of books or movies, it’s far more frequent to find them banned by nations the world over. Sometimes it’s for reasons that make a certain degree of sense — like being grossly racist or offensive. Other times, it’s so damned arbitrary, it just leaves you scratching your head. Australia in particular has a nasty habit of banning anything it doesn’t like the look of, but there a whole slew of other nations that enjoy jumping on the ban wagon.

15. 50 Cent: Bulletproof

This infamously shit-tastic action game was originally “denied classification” in Australia — a country who cover more than their fair share on this list. Due to the large amount of violence found in the title, the Office of Film and Literature Classification decided they would simply refuse to rate the game — effectively banning it from their shores. While this is a fairly frequent move from the nation, it’s always shocking to see them do it over something comparatively mild. It’s not like this is Manhunt, or anything. As often happens, a Bowdlerized version was eventually produced for sale Down Under.

14. BMX XXX, Leisure Suit Larry, GTA III, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, Singles: Flirt Up Your Life

Again, with Australia. This time, they’ve banned every game with more than a smidgen of sex in it. All the GTA games were disallowed because of violence against prostitutes, and the others got banned for rewarding good play with nudity. Paying skilled players with nipples is apparently a no-no in Australia. Even games as legendary in the mediocrity as BMX XXX managed to get mammoth hype boost by being banned by puritans. This is the same nation that’s made it illegal to have porn of squirting and small breasted women, so I can’t honestly say I’m that surprised.

13. CS, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, GTA, Mortal Kombat

Much like Australia ruthlessly bans sexuality, Brazil takes aim against violence. Some titles, this can be expected for. GTA and Mortal Kombat? Both raised major moral outrage around the world when they debuted. But Doom? Counter-Strike? Duke Nukem 3D? These are hardly horrifically detail depictions of violence. Going around blowing up cacodemons with a BFG doesn’t really seem to be the destruction of morality in youth.

12. Mortal Kombat 1, 2, 3

The original Mortal Kombat trilogy was banned in Germany for “high impact violence and cruelty.” Damnit Germany, why you got to go and raise a generation of pussies? How are they going to know the childlike glee of harpooning a man, pulling him across the stage? Or ripping out his still beating heart? Punching him off a bridge into a pit of spike? Isn’t experiencing these events the god given right of any child?

11. GTA III

The third GTA game was banned in Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan. Japan banned it. Japan, home of creepy underage rape and sex games. Japan, inventor of guro porn. Japan, the largest per capita consumer of games in the world. Why was GTA blacklisted in this region? Because authorities believed “teens might try to mimic” the violence and destruction presented in the title. Following that logic, all Japanese men are emaciated, and carry swords thicker than their waist. And all Japanese women have breasts the size of volleyballs, and constantly expose their panties.

10. Bully

Rockstar’s sandbox boarding school sim Bully was criticized in a number of nations for sticking violence into a school setting, but only Brazil thought that was enough to warrant making the game illegal. Judge Flávio Mendes Rabelo from the state of Rio Grande do Sul made the decision, based on findings by the state psychology society which claims that the game would be potentially harmful to teenagers and adults. Anyone selling the game faced a R$1000.00 per day fine. In the real world, bullying and violence never happens in schools! All children are little angels, who want to get along with each other. There’s no way they’re manipulative, scheming bastards who relentlessly persecute those different from themselves.

9. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2

The state of Chihuahua in Mexico locally banned the sale of GRAW2, because they claimed it was insulting and demeaning to citizens of the provence, and residents of Ciudad Juarez, where much of the game takes place. The only problem is that Ciudad Juarez is every bit the violence and drug filled shithole that GRAW2 makes it out to be. Filled with gangs, drug smugglers and border crossers, it’s hardly a friendly place to hang out. Sorry Chihuahuans, you can’t fault a game for saying you live in a violence filled, filthy, city, when in fact you do.

8. Fallout 3

Fallout 3 had to go through sever censorship to avoid being banned, in both Australia and Japan. By now we’re used to Aussies being spoil-sports, and because of them the game is stocked with Med-x instead of morphine. But why did the ever game-friendly nation of Japan require major changes to sell the game? Well, it turns out that a nation that had a nuke dropped on it wasn’t too happy about a post nuclear war video game. So, the Fatman nuclear launcher was renamed “Nuka-Launcher”, and The Power of the Atom sidequest was massively revamped — most notably to the extent that it’s no longer possible to blow up the town of Megaton.

7. Carmaggedon

When Carmaggedon first debuted, it was the source of major controversy. Arguably a racing game, most of each match was taken up by players viciously running over as many pedestrians as humanly possible. It turns out the governments of Germany, UK, and Brazil didn’t take too kindly to this. For the European nations, the makers of the game pushed through patches replacing all the pedestrians with zombies or robots, and swapping their blood for green or gray, as appropriate. In order to raise some hype about the game, the developers sent it to the British Board of Film Classification to get an 18 rating, something they didn’t actually need to do, as there was no video footage in the game. However, this backfired, as the board demanded that all the violence be scrubbed from the game before they would allow it. It wasn’t till 10 months later they relented, and let it through.

6. Silent Hill: Homecoming

The Silent Hill games are notoriously terrifying, combining eerie psychological horror, with brutal and oppressive violence. So what made the most recent entry in the series banned in the most game-hating nation on the planet? Australia refused to classify the fright fest due to scenes were someone was tortured using a power drill. Not particularly savory, but hardly enough to cause a blacklisting — one would think. You know how Australia gets, though. They think any violence in games will cause their precious little snowflakes to go on a powerdrill stabbing rampage, ruthlessly filling their native wildlife with holes until they get killed by something poisonous. So they decided to ban a horror scene in a horror game. Somehow the Saw movies are just fine.

5. Command & Conquer: Generals

While not mentioned frequently on this list, China is very touchy about certain subjects in video games. So much as mention an autonomous state of Tibet in your game, and you’ll end up in a dank concrete cell, being tortured with a bunch of Falun Gong hippies. They even banned a Football Manager game for that reason. Yet C&C:G manages to keep its nose out of the Tibet issue, but got banned anyway. What did it do to cause this trouble? The game was accused of “smearing the image of China and the Chinese army”. Even though China is one of the main factions of the game, and arguably one of the good guys. Sure, their faction can use “propaganda” to heal units, but that doesn’t seem like cause enough for this kerfuffle. They also weren’t fans of the Chinese faction using nukes pretty constantly, and having to blow up the Three Gorges Dam. Still, for an RTS game, that’s pretty tame.

4. Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure

Okay, this is the last Australian entry on this list, I promise. What was so wrong about Marc Ecko’s game, apart from having a title that sounds like a dirty movie? It was originally let into Australia and rated without trouble, but then Attorney General Phil Ruddock pulled some strings, leant on a few people, and appealed the decision — which lead to it being banned. The reason for this? Because it glorified graffiti, dealt with real graffiti artists, and taught kids how to tag. Which is particularly funny, as the game directly pits you against an over-authoritarian government to begin with. It’s a good thing the censors never played the Jet Set Radio games, as then Australia would be denied those amazing graffitiers too.

3. Mass Effect

BioWare’s incredibly successful space opera Mass Effect managed to raise moral ire around the world, due to an alien human sex scene — which could be lesbian if the player chose to be female. Fox News claimed there was “full graphic sex” in the scene, and a conservative blogger said “Mass Effect can be customized to sodomize whatever, whomever, however, the game player wishes,” and “with its ‘over the net’ capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away.” All of these are demonstrably false, and the worst thing you see in the game is a bit of sideboob, but never let that stop a moral panic. For some reason, Singapore took this to heart, and banned the game for showing a lesbian sex scene.

2. All video games in which you shoot people.

In 2009, the government of Venezuela decided that it would ban every single game in which you shoot people. Which, as I’m sure you know, is just about every game on the market. No human killing allowed! As always, this is due to “think of the children” mentality, where politicians believe that violence in video games correlates to teenagers getting a taste for assault. They figure if they ban games in which you can attack people, gang violence will magically disappear. Given that there is currently no evidence that links video game violence with negative behaviors in children and young adults, it’s a pretty spurious connection. I blame Chavez for this, as it was more a media stunt than anything substantive.

1. All electronic games

Way, way back in the mists of time — ca 2002 — Greece decided to ban all electronic games. Video games, Tiger LCD games, everything. It was originally designed to curb illegal gambling, but was worded extremely broadly — effectively making everything illegal. Game arcades and internet cafés were shut down, and their owners arrested. Even after protests and clarification, the bill still bans video games in Internet cafés, and computer software which deletes or encrypts files on hard disks of computers owned by Internet cafés. The law is currently in a gray area, as its been deemed unconstitutional, but it’s definitely still on the books. Over-reaction much, Greece?