Though gamers may sometimes be perceived as anti-social type of people, most of them enjoy a game that they can play with their friends or even other gamers across the world. Gaming is an international past-time that connections millions of people around the globe every day. But what if that simple joy is taken away from gamers due to their country’s restrictions?

On August 20, the fourth installment of Saints Row, a sandbox type of game that combines elements of action, adventure and vehicular gameplay, will be released in North America, followed by a European release on the 23rd, then the international release three days after.  Though fans of the series are eagerly waiting for the game to come out, gamers from Australia may not be one of them as the version of the game to be released in the country will not support co-operative play with other regions.

The original version of Saints Row 4 received an MA15+ rating in Australia after it was refused classification back in June due to the prohibition in using “illicit or proscribed drug use” in the game.  An optional mission in Saints Row includes alien narcotics and a weapon called an Alien Anal Probe which led to the banning of the co-op game play.

“For this version, we had to cut one optional Loyalty Mission from the game,” read the statement on Saints Row 4’s Facebook Page which seems to have been taken down. “Loyalty Missions are optional side missions that you can do with your homies. This mission in particular involves alien narcotics in the simulation, which eventually have a positive effect in terms of gameplay. As you cannot depict any positive effect for using narcotics in video games in Australia, this was the reason the game was refused a classification.

“While we are very proud of all our different missions, we do feel that Saints Row IV on the whole remains largely the same without this single optional mission, and we also feel that you deserve to know what you are getting in Australia. Due to the changes we were forced to make, this version is different than the version rated by rating boards like the ESRB, USK, and PEGI, which is why it will be incompatible with those versions in co-op.”

This isn’t the only game that has been censored when it comes to playing the game with people from other regions.

The popular zombie apocalypse game, the Last of Us created by Naughty Dog and published by Sony, got its European version censored due to explicit graphic content.  The multiplayer mode of the US version of the game features dismemberment and exploding heads when weapons such as “Shorty”, a sawed-off shotgun, and nail bombs were used against the infected.  In the European version however, there is no dismemberment or exploding heads – just blood spurts.

German ratings board USK is known for its strict rules regarding video games violence and may have been responsible for the censorship of the game in Europe as PEGI, the pan-European game ratings organisation, awarded The Last of Us an 18 certificate for release and its spokesperson Dirk Bosmans stated that they never censor games, they only rate them.

But what do these game censorship mean for gamers?

The the game makers state that omission of some stages or graphics doesn’t actually change the gameplay, some players can’t help but feel cheated.

“I have already paid for the DLC Season Pass completely oblivious that I bought and was playing a censored version of the game (Joel Edition as well!),” Ramify, a Last of Us player, complained. “I understand that from a gameplay perspective, this doesn’t change things too much. But I can’t shake the feeling I did not buy the game in its entirety, and not how the developers intended this work of art to be played.”

Game censorship has been around for decades.  It can be as simple as editing out curse words, changing how a title appears because the original version depicts something religious, or as extreme as deleting some scenes.

The problem with this is that gamers feel cheated and game makers would probably feel like all their hard work has been pushed aside.  It’s quite frustrating when you’ve worked so hard on something only to be deleted.

Here’s my take on all these game censorship deal: growing up in a home where you have a little brother who loves playing videos games on any gaming platform available is normal for me.  Though some of my relatives thought it was not right to have a kid playing games that required him to kill characters by shooting, stabbing, stomping or even blowing them up, it really didn’t bother our family, because we were there to tell him that what he does in video games cannot be applied in real life because it would end up with someone being hurt.

Though some may argue that violent video games are the root of all evil, as some people say games encouraged kids to do harm, video games do not kill people.  People kill people. We cannot blame game makers for how shitty our world is when everything could have been avoided if people just took time to sit down with their kids and tell them that what happens in video games, especially killing characters, should not be taken literally.