The Chinese government has banned 50 "pirate" games, including The Sims 2, for being too porn-y or otherwise contrary to local ideology.
Liu Binjie, deputy director of the administration and director of the state anti-porn office said here Wednesday that the Chinesegovernment in 2005 will focus on combating illegal publications. This especially concerns pirated textbooks, electronic publications and illegal journals that will have negative influence on the youth.
Among the 50 illegal games, 26 are pirated game software including Age of Mythology: the Titans, The Sims 2, Manhunt, FIFA 2005, Battlefield Vietnam and Painkiller: Battle out of Hell. The remaining are illegally distributed foreign games including Conflict Vietnam, Vietcong: Fist Alpha and Devastation.
(via /.)
Update: Matt sez, "I think this has become a huge area of misunderstanding. The Chinese govenrment is not per se banning Sims 2, they're cracking down on piracy and illegal imports of the listed titles. Presumably some of the more popular recent titles are more prone to being pirated, so instead of having to check every copy of everything they find they've settled on a subset that are more often than not going to be pirated when they stumble across a copy. (Why some of them may be classed as 'illegally imported' is probably more interesting — possibly they're not available legally in China — but this is an entirely seperate issue, and is not limited to a list of 50 things.)"
