Fallout 3 Defused For Japan

That is weird. Wonder if they have that perk that makes things more gory?

They also said they would be changing a gun name, as Kotaku guessed it will probably be the "Fat Man" for obvious reasons.

Ah, yes Fat Man, sorry forgot the name.

Where do I sign the petition to put that tree back in the game??  Outrageous.
(Missed pun alert: accrue a megaton of negative karma.)

yes, that tree is damn awesome. I mean, look at it, beauty, just pure beauty :)

That tree, alright. That tree.

No atomic bomb but I hear they're adding a creepy underaged school girl up-skirt character to make the game more acceptable.

Shame, that looked like a fun mission too.

Hmmm, think Hiroshima and Nagasaki had anything to do with this?

"Fat Man" but yes, that seems to follow the same logic. Still disappointing as that was the one big choice in the game. Are people still sensitive about that? It was over sixty years ago...

That is incredibly stupid.

I think people need to remember which country used a nuclear bomb on which other country, think about that and it all makes sense then lol

What?  Haven't they seen Akira?  Or, you know, any number of the many animes with massive, city-destroying explosions?

Any native Japanese folks want to weigh in on this?  Are nuclear explosions taboo in video games in Japan?

That will affect the game a lot. You got lots of stuff for blowing up the bomb.

What? Then how are you going to access the tenpenny tower exclusive quest? This is really dumb and shows why political correctness sucks.

I saw this coming.

 If they kept it the same the game may be banned from Japan. And that would be stupid, and a bummer.

What's funny is that I think I know exactly where that tree in the picture is in the game.

Then there's the numerous derogatory names that certain characters use to describe the Japanese and the Chinese. The Chinese, in particular, would somewhat rightly be offended by this game. I say somewhat because it is, after all, a game, and is obviously poking fun at the era of capitalism vs communism around the time all-out nuclear war seemed like a reality.

Also, does this mean they'll be removing the Fat Boy altogether (mini-nukes!!!), or changing the way cars blow up (with a mushroom cloud, supposedly due to all the radiation buildup over the years).

This is understandable. We Americans will have to wait and see if, in twenty or so years in the future, if putting something resembling the World Trade Center incident will have the same effect (or is it affect? O_o) as this.

That tree is pretty crazy.

I wonder if they all the "Chinese" prefixes stayed. Cuz all asians hate each other.

Japan is getting soooo dumb.

@snapstacle

That was a joke, right? Because that is a bit of an exaggeration, there is tension about world war two between china and japan, japan and korea, and tension between the two koreas, but I think saying all asians hate each other is a bit of an big leap to make.

Also, Nuka Cola machines were replaced by used underwear dispensers.

All I have to say is, 'I ain't Japanese so it don't matter to me'

How the hell are they gonna get a house? This quest is how you get one of the two.

u cant really blame them i mean they are the ONLY country in the world that got hit by a nuke...
i wood b sensitive bout dat 2

Typical bullshit coming out of Japan. Hell with censorship - that's like... what if us western hemisphere people censored the "Slavers" side quests because we did not want to stir up history's wounds? Complete rubbish. I lived in Japan for a long time and I noticed that many of those people seemed to ignore the fact that their soldiers raped and mutilated hundreds of Asians - no big deal that they want to ignore a video game that shows a fictional atom bomb going off in a fictional town. "Oh, I'm sooo sensitive to that, please don't bring it up. I can't handle facing it. Please alter your expressive video game for my sake." Frack that. Frack censorship. Yeah, it's an atomic bomb - like the ones we dropped on you during the war - back in 1945.

Hell, if it was a mission to fly an airplane into the Tenpenny Tower - I would never want it cut from the game. Of course 9/11 was close to my heart, but am I supposed to let what happened hinder Bethesda's freedom of expression? No way in hell.

He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, and will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today. - Tryon Edwards

I blame the splitting the atom...

Here is a representation of the horrors of the atom bomb in japanese culture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Gen

I'm pretty sure some Japanese soldiers as well as civilians were shot and killed with bullets during WWII so why don't they have Bethesda remove every weapon that fires bullets? Reason: hypocricy, plain and simple.

I can almost see Germany's point about banning anything overly violent against humans in videogames. Almost. They are ashamed of their past and are constantly trying to sweep in under the rug and forget about it.

What I don't get is Japan and America's attitude towards nukes and 9/11 respectively. You guys got hit hard with major league hammers through no fault (arguably) of your own. Stand up already and be proud how your nations have grown and moved on from those trajedies. I know up in Canada today is Remembrance Day for the brave soldiers who fought in WWII and they are honored each year with a national holiday dedicated to them. Wouldn't it be idiotic to try to ban any mention of how many died back then because it might be hard to remember the awful times Canada (and much of the world) had to go through?

No one ever improved themselves by keeping their head in the sands.

I know nukes are a sensitive topic in Japan, but it shouldn't be. More people died in a single fire-bomb raid on Tokyo and there were plenty of those. Should they ban fire? I guess it's mostly the psychological effect of one single bomb creating a lot of damage instead of thousands of smaller bombs.

ugghh, they are sensitive to these games,when they have anime that depicts the same degree.. Just...ughh

Can't blame them I guess....

What kind of effect does that leave for gaining the apartment in Tenpenny? Maybe they change that part to just killing Simms to appease what's his face (can't remember his name)... who knows, but understandable either way.

Japanese....so man of history..... it's like million years ago already, just forget it and move on....for some of you might not know, they got this argument all the time between china and japan about changing the japanese history text book to make japanese sound and look nicer in history, I mean they did some bad things, everyone knows it and they just can't admit they did it and let their younglinks know about it....it's just pathetic man... I guess the japanese government might as well ban COD:WaW, coz that might expose some of the "evil" things they did....seriously.....gosh!

After I read some post before mine, I have to say, I totally agree with you guys, I mean if they ban this, they should just ban everything, wired enough, they are quite open with their prostitute issue in Japan, if I remember correctly, in WWII, they also got these prostitute thing...I don't want to go in too deep about this stuff, but I mean they should ashamed, right? shouldn't they just ban it as well.... and I am still seeing tons of prono "made in Japan". 

@ Philsoma:

if you live in japan long enough you should know, the bad things you mentioned they did back in history, the reason they ignore them is because it's bad stuff "they did", they have to cover it up, its like "we can't let our children know about what we did in the past!!" and let their younglinks only learn about how great is japan and know about the "evil" stuffs OTHER countries did to them.  The bomb thing, it is too hard to cover, its too big, affected too many japanese residents, so they just ban it and say "those were bad times due to OTHER countries, and we should forget about them." bunch of hypocrite.....I wish they just stfu.

Why all this hate on Japan?

Do you guys really believe that we're not sensitive to certain issues?  Do you, PATJASA, believe that there's nothing in American history that no one talks about, things that we try to hide from the next generation?

I don't think you guys understand the impact an atomic bomb has not only directly after impact, but long-term.

I believe there are some things happened in the history of American and people don't want to talk about them, and maybe hide it from the children, but I don't want to see these political stuff affect gaming industry. I don't "hate" japanese, they are cool alright, but when it comes to banning games or game contents because of some political issue, it just annoying.

Well as long as there's still slavery in the game. Not like thats ever upset anyone!!!

PC Overload !!!

Why are people saying stuff about Japan?  In the post here and on Kotaku I see nothing saying that Bethesday made the changes at the behest of any Japanese group.  I can't say I'm too familiar with Japanese culture and customs, but I've always gotten the impression they have a greater respect for the opinions of the elder members of society and family than westerners, and if that's true then Bethesda might have made the change to try and avoid upsetting the older folk in Japan who might be sensitive about the subject of the use of nuclear weapons on innocent people, perhaps emphasized by the fact it's being marketed by an American developer. 

Who knows if that's the case, but unless someone has another source of information besides Kotaku, there's no reason to go blaming the censorship on the Japanese instead of Bethesda.

LOL WUT?

Just because they were nuked in WW2, doesn't mean they should remove an important part of the game. Hell, the game is set in America anyway. Unless the game portrays Mt Fuji being obliterated by a 100Mt bomb, I say leave the bomb in.

Just like how the you can no longer have planes anywhere near any kind of dual towers?

I find it strange that trivial events like Hiroshima and Nagasaki are taken so seriously, when in reality, the few hundred thousand or so people who died from nuclear technology was just a tiny, tiny fraction of the total deaths in the war.

As the film '11 lessons from the life of robert s mcnamara' points out, Americans needlessly killed hundreds of times more women and children in normal firebombing raids on civilian cities just for the hell of it.

Sad, but true.

Censorship is, always has, and always will be the first step towards a militarized society, and thus the first step towards ww3 and a repeat of these same past atrocities.

The whole frickin game is after the nuclear holocaust! Does noone in Japan find anything wrong with that?

No, this is completely understandable and since I live over here, speak the language and married to Japanese national, I figure I may have some insight. The Japanese are the only people in the world that has ever had an atomic bomb dropped on them, and they know what it does. The Japanese campaign hard against nucular weapons because of how deep the effect was against civilians that really were nothing more than innocent victims. The ones that were vaporized were lucky, those who died slowly from burns were not...the victims most tragically affected were the ones born in Hiroshima and Nagasaki years after the war, with severe health problems and birth defects.
The point is this: there are many people that are still affected in some way by the negative outcome of the event; whether it's themselves or a parent, relative or friend. In Japan, which has the world's largest aging population, there are many who still remember the event.
Being able to make a decision to nuke people in a game is offensive to those people because it isn't a decision to be taken lightly. The context in which you are presented with the choice in the game could be easily percieved as taking the decision and outcome too lightly, with muted consequences. Considering as well that the Japanese do not have the cultural references (Cold war rhetoric, 1950's American political knowledge) in their background to understand the tongue-in-cheek humor of the way the overall game is presented.
It's safer for Bethesda to be culturally sensitive in this situation, and this is a situation where sensitivity is called for. Just like the Holocaust, the bombing of Japan during the second world war was a tragedy that we should all work hard to make sure never happens again. It's not an infringement upon freedom of speech to censor material that may cause emotional harm to a large number of people.
Those Japanese who wish to play the original version can buy it in import shops if they wish to do so. But it is smarter for Bethesda from a business perspective and more considerate in a public relations perspective to release the game with these changes.
Please don't call Japan dumb unless you've really thought about being their shoes thoroughly. There are many things not discussed in America for the same reasons. I don't think I need to list them here. If you've read this far, thank you for your attention.

So instead of Bethesda taking it out why don't they just say it's a giant bomb instead of a Nuke. There problem solved now you just kill everyone with a bomb instead of a nuclear warhead.

Strange considering Atomic anhialation has been the main theme of countless anime films.

Hmm... that Japanese do have a lot of nuclear bomb imagery in their own culture and stuff (to bring up another's example, Akira). Which is understandable. I don't really think that the stuff in the game should be that big of an issue -- that did all happen 60 years ago, but It was a really big deal, so It's understandable. And also, im not Japanese, so I don't understand anything about Japanese culture.

I just cheaked it, in the movie Akira the title doesn't appear until 1min 40 seconds into it. Tokyo is completely destroyed at the 40 sec mark. Somehow I don't think they'll be offended by some dude choosing detonating a nuke in an already nuked Washington DC.