South Park: The Stick of Truth Co-Creator Offers His Opinions On Censoring the Game

Far as we've come, certain countries still seem to have an iron clad policy against content involving rear entry, placing game developers in something of a buttplay bind, or, anal aggravation, if you will. You may recall that even with R18+ rated games now allowed to be sold in Australia, Saints Row IV had just such an issue with making it in down under thanks to an anal probe weapon players could use. South Park: The Stick of Truth was the latest game to be re-tooled and have all rectum related ravagings removed so it could be released across the Atlantic. Co-creator Matt Stone recently spoke with The Guardian, and shared his opinion on having to make the alterations.

"It does feel like a double standard, a little bit. 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."

In place of the anal antics, European players are greeted with an image of a statue with its face in its hands, against the backdrop of the flag of Europe. A message appears at the bottom describing the scene in question. In place of the flag and statue, Australian players see a teary eyed koala.

It was posed that maybe the content was altered because people take to things differently in games than they do to movies and television. To this, Stone replied, "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.

"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."

South Park: The Stick of Truth released on PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360 earlier this week to mostly positive reviews.