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Community Discussion: Blog by arkane9 | 3DS eShop censorship? On region-locking within a regionDestructoid
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On Thursdays the 3DS's eShop gets updated. So naturally, I turned on my 3DS today and opened the eShop to check out what's new.

But not only that! I had heard that us here in Europe would get a demo for Dead or Alive Dimensions (I don't know if US will get it today too). I pressed the Demo-button in the menu, but couldn't find any new demos. I checked the News-section, and saw no mention of it. So I checked several sites and all of them, even Nintendo's UK-site, mention it. Then I remembered something. The game was never released where I live.

Dead or Alive Dimensions was not released in the Scandinavian countries.

For those of you who don't know or remember, the game wasn't released in Sweden, Norway and Denmark due to Sweden's child pornography laws. It was a stupid and ignorant decision by Nintendo of Europe and Bergsala, the company which imports and distributes Nintendo games in Scandinavia, as even the police themselves dismissed that the game could equate to porn.


Sorry, Scandinavia. Too offensive for you.

So I tried changing my regions to the UK in the settings and lo and behold, there was the demo. Even the News-section was now mentioning it. Dead or Alive Dimensions Demo.
And I had no problems downloading or playing it. So Nintendo actually went out of their way to try to prevent access to a demo. As if they wanted to say that the rest of Europe is allowed to download and play it, but not us.

Now, we are all annoyed when a game is released in one region but not another. There was a time when it looked like the US wouldn't receive Xenoblade or The Last Story, and I have several times expressed my annoyance that Sakura Samurai has not been released in Europe and there has been no mention of it on release schedules. Just to mention a few recent examples. But a company intentionally going out of their way to hold back simple demo from a few countries within a region? Seriously?

Idiocy, in my opinion. Simple as that.

So this is not only a heads-up to other Dtoiders from Scandinavia with a 3DS if they want to try the demo and how to get around the restrictions, but to everybody to still be aware that sometimes companies will try to pull the wool over your eyes.

So, if you will excuse me, I'm now going to ogle Hitomi in all her 3D-glory. Because as a European, that is my right.



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Thanks Arkane.

I live in Denmark and had this problem! So I had to buy the game through some online store.

BECAUSE DAMMIT IT'S MY RIGHT AS A SCANDINAVIAN, NAY HUMAN BEING TO OGLE HITOMI AND FRIENDS IN ALL THEIR 3D-GLORY!

All kiddings a side it still pisses me off that this game is considered to be "child pornography" when I've been able to buy every single DOA game since DOA1 on PSOne without any problems. GRRR!
That's just a stupid thing for them to do, atleast you were able to work around it though.
@SirNinjaFace
That's the thing the baffles me. We don't live in the 90s anymore, so people can just import the game like you did, yet for some reason Nintendo decided to hide the demo and tried to hide its existence. I actually checked just now, and there are Danish, Norwegian and Swedish online-stores who sell the game now and have probably just imported it themselves instead of going through Bergsala. There are probably also regular stores who have done the same thing, so obtaining the game in these countries isn't particularly hard.

And yeah. the hole child porn issue is just equally as stupid. The DOA-cast are all fictional, digital characters who look like they are in their early 20s, and they are always clothed. No nudity whatsoever.
You seem to want to blame Nintendo. There is a law in place in those countries on a very touchy (snicker) subject, and they decided they didn't want to risk facing litigation. This ins't Ninteno's issue, it is your government. There was no ambiguity in the law in any other region, so it is your region's fault. Sorry. You personally can circumvent that law by importing, or saying that you aren't from that area, and that's fine.

Also, at your comment, hehe, "hole child porn issue". "hole". "child porn". I'm mature, really.
@taterchimp
But I do blame Nintendo. Yes, they would be taking a risk, but that risk would be minimal. Even the police said that this game could not be interpreted as underage porn, and I really doubt Nintendo would have been convicted over this game. Nintendo simply didn't want the potential bad press that could come their way. A pretty cowardly move. Business-wise it makes sense, but it's still pretty cowardly.

And the thing is that this is one country's law (Sweden), yet two other countries were also affected (Denmark and Norway). Why couldn't the game be published in those two other countries? Even more, why hold back a simple demo from those countries now when regular and online stores in all the Scandinavian countries sell the game anyway?

Yes, I do have certain "holes" in my ability to spell correctly haha

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