South Park Creator Says The Game’s Censorship Is A Double Standard

South Park: The Stick of Truth has been censored in Australia and for some reason South Africa but most curiously of all, Europe too. We’re not just talking about the swastikas left in the German and Austrian versions.

South Park co-creator Matt Stone has spoken out against the double standards of the censoring of some scenes in the game. Double standards, you say? Well, the scenes in question would be safe for airing on television.

“It does feel like a double standard, a little bit,” Stone told The Guardian today. “We weren’t willing to change the content, but also it doesn’t ruin the game–it’s like 40 seconds’ worth of the whole game. As long as we could make a joke out of the fact that they made us cut this, that was fine.”

Stone said the interactive nature of video games is likely what makes some more uncomfortable about certain material than when seen on TV.

“There is an interactiveness that makes it different. In movies and television you can do stuff that’s morally grey very easily, because you get to show consequences, you get to show reward, but in a video game there’s a reason why everything is a Nazi, zombie, or alien–these are pretty clear moral choices,” Stone said. “There are things that make people more uncomfortable in an interactive world, definitely. But that said, what we had in the game, we could have shown that on TV pretty easily, especially now.”

Name: A-G Sonday
Location: Cape Town
Position: Editor, Reviews

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