10 Games that were banned for violence or other bizarre reasons

The absolute king of controversy. In Manhunt you play a prisoner who has to star in a snuff film. You get points for the way you execute people: the more gruesome, the better. Think of suffocation with plastic bags or stabbing with glass shards. When a British teenager murdered a friend in 2004, the tabloids immediately pointed to Manhunt as the cause. The game was banned in dozens of countries and is still illegal in New Zealand and Germany. It is the most infamous game of all time.

The game that was so violent that it was never officially released. Thrill Kill (1998) was a fighting game with BDSM themes, in which four maniacs had to slaughter each other in a small room. The “Fatalities” (finishing moves) were sickening. When EA (Electronic Arts) bought the studio and saw what they had created, they refused to release it. They felt it was too damaging to their image and destroyed the master copies. The game was later distributed via the illegal circuit.

Most games give you a reason to fight (save the princess, stop the terrorists). Hatred (2015) does not. The main character's only goal is to kill as many innocent people as possible because he hates humanity. It's a pure mass murder simulator. The game was so crude and senselessly violent that even the platform Twitch banned its streaming. It is one of the few games that received an 'Adults Only' rating in America purely based on violence, which made sales in normal stores impossible.

If there's one game made to offend, it's Postal 2. You can set people on fire, pee on them until they throw up and… use cats as a silencer on your gun. New Zealand was clear: owning, selling or even playing this game is a criminal offence. You can get a prison sentence of 10 years and a fine of $50,000. The game has been officially labeled as “garbage”.

One mission. That's all it took to make world news. In the mission “No Russian” you play an undercover agent who walks into an airport with terrorists and opens fire on hundreds of innocent, screaming civilians. The game was immediately removed from the shelves in Russia. In other countries, a huge debate arose: can you, as a player, take on the role of a mass murderer, even if it is fiction to tell a bigger story?

No list is complete without GTA. Almost every part is banned somewhere in the world. Brazil banned part due to violence, Thailand banned the entire series after a teenager murdered a taxi driver “as in the game”. The biggest scandal, however, was the 'Hot Coffee Mod' in San Andreas: a hidden sex scene discovered by hackers. It cost developer Rockstar millions in lawsuits and stickers had to be adjusted worldwide.

It's hard to imagine now, but before 1992 there were no age ratings for games. Then came Mortal Kombat. Parents fainted when they saw the character Sub-Zero rip the spine (head and all) out of his opponent. It led to hearings in the US Senate and a worldwide panic. Thanks to this game, the current system of age stickers (PEGI) exists.

This is one of the most bizarre lawsuits in gaming history. The Guy Game (2004) was a quiz show that showed real images of girls during 'Spring Break'. If they got a question wrong, they showed their breasts. Brilliant concept for teenagers, until it turned out that one of the girls in the videos was only 17 years old. The game was immediately withdrawn from the market due to the distribution of child pornography. The developers were sued and the game is now a rare collector's item.

In 1997 this was Carmageddon shock of the year. In racing games the aim is to be the first to cross the finish line. In Carmageddon you got bonus points if you bulldozed as many pedestrians and cows as possible along the way. In countries like Germany and the United Kingdom the world was too small. The game was banned unless the developer turned the blood green and replaced the humans with zombies or robots. It only made the game more popular among rebellious teenagers.

Games are usually banned because of murder and manslaughter of people. But Fallout 3 was banned in India for a completely different reason. In the game, mutated cows walk around with two heads, called “Brahmins”. Players can kill these animals. Because the cow is sacred in India (and the name Brahmin refers to a sacred caste), Microsoft thought it wiser not to release the game there at all to prevent riots.