Rome mayor wants game banned

By Tom Bramwell Published 15 November, 2006

Nope, not GTA. Keep guessing.

Rome mayor Walter Veltroni wants Rule of Rose banned from his country because it's violent and unsuitable for children.

That's according to a report at Lifeinitaly.com, where Veltroni is quoted as saying, "There is no way that a violent videogame should be sold and distributed in our country... this game must not enter Italian homes".

Rule of Rose, developed by Sony but published in Europe via 505 Games, is allegedly a bit disturbing, telling the story of a young girl caught in a deranged orphanage.

And that's enough for Veltroni to find fault, with the mayor claiming that kids have it hard enough as it is what with "violence present on a daily basis in all the media", and "have the right to be shielded from violence".

Sony hasn't had much to say about it, other than reaffirming it's distanced itself from the content of Rule of Rose by not publishing it in the west - partly because it thought some of it was a bit dodgy.

But 505 Games has so far had nothing to say, with our requests for comment as yet unanswered.

Anyway, you can find out what all the fuss is about if you like by picking up Rule of Rose when it comes out on PS2 later this month - 24th November.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (43) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Steroyd #1 5 years ago

    wahay it releases on my birthday. \O/

    isn't rule of rose a 15?

  • itamae #2 5 years ago

    Finally! Games other than GTA get free advertisement. And 505 is an Italian company so that might be more than just coincidence. :-D

  • monkeylite #3 5 years ago

    @Lavaland, that is clever. And I guess those Republican Conservative Christian Capitalists in the US trying to ban games are now Socialists.

    Any misguided soul regardless of political leaning would ban anything.

    Grow up.

  • AcidSnake #4 5 years ago

    I have no idea what rule of rose is about...
    I live in Italy and it's the first time I've seen them freak out over this...

    There must be some anti-church stuff in there I guess...That usually pisses everyone off over here...

  • GordonJ@work #5 5 years ago

    It's 15+ in Finland and 16+ everywhere else. http://www.pegi.info

  • jmctavish #6 5 years ago

    People like this Mayor obviously don't understand the concept of age ratings for games.

  • Zuiyo #7 5 years ago

    Viral marketing!

  • Ceatlan #8 5 years ago

    lavalant,

    I think its quite funny when you put facist and communist together in the same description, considering one is the far right (facism) and one the far left (communism) so they are totally opposing idealologies.

    Edited by 1 at 15/11/06 @ 16:21

  • kalel #9 5 years ago

    Actually, reading through this it does sound quite dodgy...

    http://en.w ikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_rose

  • Nobuo #10 5 years ago

    @lavalant:

    Fascist communism? Isn't that the oxymoron of the year?

    On topic: This is the first I've heard of this game.

  • chupachups #11 5 years ago

    "don't be surprised if in 5 years video games are banned from italy"

    That actually happened in Greece in 2002:

    http://ne ws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/22...

    ...and the law was still on the books in 2004:

    [link url=http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3744016.stm
    ]http://ne ws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/374401...[/link]


    "Fascist communism? Isn't that the oxymoron of the year? "

    Should be in theory, in practice they're much the same thing, all centralised and authoritarian.
    Edited by 2 at 15/11/06 @ 16:37

  • AcidSnake #12 5 years ago

    Anyone remember the simpsons episode where they watch a movie with McBain fighting the forces of the communazis?

  • Aysir #13 5 years ago

    The game is disturbing to be sure, but not really ban-worth material. It's rather like a Haunting Ground meets Silent Hill type game...with orphans involved :)

  • Kalinin #14 5 years ago

    I think it's time to bring out the political compass.

    http://www.political compass.org/

  • AcidSnake #15 5 years ago

    @bigo:
    Pornography might not be the reason for the ban...

    @lavalant:
    You do realise that fascism and communism are complete opposites?
    As remarked by several people?
    And that communism is in fact left wing?

  • pagedown #16 5 years ago

    I thought rome was quite big on violent entertainment for the masses (i.e. colisseum). Okay, that was a while ago.

  • TonyBlair #17 5 years ago

    Bird Head: Attacks by bringing a large cone-like bead head down on Jennifer or Brown. Inflicts a large amount of damage, but is slow in that the cone is heavy, making it easy to attack. Makes odd cooing sounds when it attacks.

  • chupachups #18 5 years ago

    "You do realise that fascism and communism are complete opposites?"

    In theory and propaganda, yes.

    In practice, no. Day-to-day life in a fascist state is much like day-to-day life in a communist state: the government controls everyone's lives without any system of accountability and use this control largely to keep themselves in power.


    "And that communism is in fact left wing?"

    Would you say a ban on elections, a ban on opposition parties and a ban on demonstrations is left wing? Terms like left-wing and right-wing are meaningless once a government gains total power over a state with no possibility of being removed except by force.
    Edited by 2 at 15/11/06 @ 17:22

  • Nobuo #19 5 years ago

    "socialism is a form of communism, and from that stems facism, it's just the natural progression of a right wing socialist government.

    so communist china isnt a facist state? hahahaha fuck off."

    Fascism in it's definition is the opposite of Communism, and I'm sure the Spanish would be very vocal in supporting that. Whether Communism is/leads to Authoritarianism in practice is a completely different argument really (in fact I'd probably be on your side on that one) and has nothing to do with the fact that calling someone a facist communist is hilariously ironic.
    Edited by 2 at 15/11/06 @ 17:31

  • Nobuo #20 5 years ago

    "Would you say a ban on elections, a ban on opposition parties and a ban on demonstrations is left wing?"

    Obviously not, but that's not the Communist ideology is it? Because some parties that call themselves Communist behave this way doesn't change the definition of Communism IMO.

    Wow, is this the most off-topic a thread has ever become this quickly or what?
    Edited by 1 at 15/11/06 @ 17:37

  • Inflatable #21 5 years ago

    Someone needs to teach all these ignorant politcians that it's not only childeren playing videogames.. Infact most gamers nowadays are over 18..

    And you cannot not ban things like this for adults.. That's pure censorship, and against the law.. Same as you cannot ban movies for adults aswell..

  • President_Weasel #22 5 years ago

    I don't think the Romans are going to be missing all that much to be honest, however there's a principle here. In an ideal world politicians should know what they are talking about before they open their mouths. That means you too Keith Vaz, you tit.
    Still, I suppose it is possible that by 'children' he meant 'youths'.

  • Salato #23 5 years ago

    After reading about it and seeing a trailer for it on youtube, it certainly did seem quite disturbing and dodgy, and I'm halfway inclined to agree with the mayor. I'm not surprised Sony did not want it released outside of Japan really. It certainly should not be anything less than an 18 rating.

  • monkeylite #24 5 years ago

    Communism is an ideology. Just because a dictatorship like China (which is more of a semi-capitalist country) calls themselves 'communists' doesn't make them one. Just like the Labour party isn't socialists, despite some members thinking that they are. They are probably more right-wing than even the Tories.

    In Asia, countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia hates communism (they are mainly run by right-wing pro-capitalists nationalistic politicians), but look at how many stuff they banned.

    Blame the way the government operates - not the ideology that they *claim* they love.

    BTW, Rome is a very religious city, and if anything I believe that is the reason why they want to ban the game. What with the right-wing Conservative Christians in the Vatican just on their door step...

  • kangarootoo #25 5 years ago

    @Ceatlan and Nobuo

    "so they are totally opposing idealologies."

    But "Ideologies" is the key word here. One problem being that people en masse don't hold communist beliefs in their heart (in fact we are genetically programmed to be self serving). The second being that people en masse aren't wise enough to run society for the benefit of everyone.

    So whenever communism is put into practice on a grand scale (it can work on a small scale, there are plenty of community based societies kicking about) you end up with one set of people forcing rules onto everyone else "for the greater good".

    As lavalant (using badly chosen suggests) is that a communist society can often lose sight of what "the greater good" is supposed to be. We would assume that it means the greater good of the people, but often it turns out to mean "the ideology of the society" (communism itself if you like), and it seems to be OK to harm your people to protect the ideal.

    Communism in practice often feels to me like a captain going down his/her ship. Its like there is a profound belief the the principles of the society are good and true, and the most important thing is to stick to them no matter who gets hurt.

    In that sense facism shares a great deal with communism. I think one key thing that makes people believe they are contrary ideals is that our history gives us example of facists and communist fighting each other. That perhaps says more about people than it does about the ideals themselves.

    @lavalant

    "so communist china isnt a facist state? hahahaha fuck off."

    Now now. You don't help yourself make a point by name calling. It just undermines what you have to say and makes you look like a stroppy internet kid (if that is in fact the case, please continue).

  • kangarootoo #26 5 years ago

    @Nobuo

    "Fascism in it's definition is the opposite of Communism"

    Looking at the following links, I 'm not sure I would fully agree with that. It seems to me that you could in fact have a fascist communist state depending on your defenition of the two (and there is no singular fixed definition of either).

    [link url=http:/ /dictionary.reference.com/browse/fascism
    ]http://di ctionary.reference.com/browse/f...[/link]
    [link url=http ://dictionary.reference.com/browse/communism
    ]http://di ctionary.reference.com/browse/c...[/link]

    To paraphrase from fascism "a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power".

    To paraphrase from communism "a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party"

    Those are just two core similarities. It all comes down (as always) to how the ideologies are actually applied by men and women.

    So I don't want it to look like I am only choosing choice dictionary segments that support my point. There are some contradictions between the two and both have several definitions, so of which oppose each other. The key point I am making is that is not conrrect to suggest that are in all parts mutually exclusive.

  • YourMessageHere #27 5 years ago

    This looks like a cool game; reminds me of Alice, which can only be good.

    The way this fascism/socialism thing works is: Think of a circle. At the top of the circle is middleground liberalism. Curving downwards on left and right are, well, leftist and rightist attitudes. The further down they go, the more extremist they are. Where the two sides meet at the bottom is totalitarianism, in which the extremism is so dominant that it overrides the political ideology which it claims to uphold.

    Lavalant, don't be confused by terminology; what you actually mean is totalitarian not Fascist. Also, don't be influenced by the fact that Hitler's party was originally called the National Socialist party, it was just a name designed to attract as many people as possible. Fascism as a concept dates from ancient Rome, and every implementation of actual fascism has gone to pains to eradicate socialism (remember, communism = one implementation of socialism; the two are not interchangable). China is (nowadays) nominally communist, socialist hardly at all, but almost completely totalitarian.

    Edit: Rome, not Greece. Bleh.
    Edited by 1 at 16/11/06 @ 00:01

  • kangarootoo #28 5 years ago

    Like your circle analogy.

  • Nobuo #29 5 years ago

    I feel like I'm being dragged into a side of this debate I don't actually support. I pretty much agree that in practice Communism and Authoritarianism have a lot of similar characteristics. My stance at this present time is that in definition, i.e. what the words themselves mean, Communism and Fascism are polar opposite, ergo a "facist communist" cannot exist, contrary to the second post in this thread. However, Facists who consider themselves Communists exist in abundance.

    So basically I agree with kangarootoo, although I think he was trying to argue with me ;)

    EDIT: Just read your second post. Call me hard headed but I'm still gonna have to disagree with that definition, even if it did come from dictionary.com. It definately sounds to me like a commentary of applied Communism rather than a definition of what the word means, though at this point I'd sympathise with an argument that I'm not listening to reason lol.

    EDIT 2: Just looked up Facism on Wikipedia, it has "anti-communism" right there in the definition.

    EDIT 3: I don't think I've been so off-topic in my life. $ony is teh shitz!
    Edited by 3 at 16/11/06 @ 09:08

  • SomaticSense #30 5 years ago

    Could people please stop confusing between Fascism, practised Communism, and the Communist 'ideal'? It ucking annoying and makes you sound like ignorant backwood yanks.

    Communism is the opposite of fascism. It's just that the two biggest countries that have gone under the name "communist" were in practice actually fascist countries. Everyone thinks of Russia (formerly) and China as communist countries, when in practice they are far from being true communist countries and are actually fascist countries.
    The true ideal of communism is that everyone who is a citizen of that country is as equal as each other (there's more than that, but that is the basis with which it revolves around). It may not actually have worked out like that in the past, and it may be impossible given the worlds current social and politcal climate for it to work, but it doesn't stop it from being 'ideally' the best and most fair way of running a country and treating it's people. Read the George Orwell book Animal Farm to see why it won't work in the current social and political world and the consequences of it.

    So don't fucking confuse it with fascism. The countries that have 'attempted' it have realised it doesn't work and ended up reverting to fascism but still using the 'communist' tag. Again, read Animal Farm to give you some indictation of why this is. Too many of you are being desensitised by the 'American' view of 'evil' communism, and to be honest it's downright disgusting. True communism is the complete polar opposite to fascism that the Nazi's preached and what China currently catergorise as.

  • marilena #31 5 years ago

    (Quote from the Wikipedia link:) "erotic undertones involving a cast of female minors"

    SOLD!

  • escalinci #32 5 years ago

    Well, I do regard it as too creepy, a bit pointless and shit (Edge think so, anyhow, and from what I've seen I agree).

  • YourMessageHere #33 5 years ago

    Dammit, Communism gone wrong (China, Stalin) IS NOT Fascism. Fascism is by definition a right-wing philosophy (by my understanding). Communism gone wrong is not right wing. Communism gone wrong is totalitarianism.

    All this talk of "true Communism" worries me a bit. I hope you mean "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need"-type theoretical Communism as defined by Marx and Engels, i.e. Socialism, applied to a practical model of the world. If so, well, that's OK, but strictly speaking you mean Socialism. But if you've believe you've got some actual real world example in mind, well, no-one's managed to make communism actually work properly yet.

    Personally I have great hopes for the colonisation of Mars; other than that, socialism is buggered. Yes, it's the fairest of all ideologies, but human nature and existing structure breaks it every time.

  • doctor__no #34 5 years ago

    >>"erotic undertones involving a cast of female minors"

    I've played this game, there really isn't anything sexual displayed or said, a lot of it is very subtle and implied via your imagination due to odd circumstances (like why is this young girl in a room with an older man?).

    The game isn't very violent compared to other survival horror games, and is a very original title with loads of creativity.

    The story is fantastic, but the gameplay is merely mediocre, but my feeling after playing this game is that we need more original games like this.

  • doctor__no #35 5 years ago

    English page:
    http://www.atlus.com /ruleofrose/

  • 3william56 #36 5 years ago

    Well, arguing about Facism and Communism makes a welcome change to PS3 vs 360. On ya go lads. 700 posts ahoy...

  • Realtime #37 5 years ago

    Here you go AcidSnake

    http://ww w.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php...

  • neuroniky #38 5 years ago

    To me, this is just another italian political nonsense (we're getting specialized in political nonsense in the last, say, 10 years...)... a lot of fuss over nothing. The usual problem with grown people thinking that videogames are games for kids and that the law should be responsible of what their kids are playing, and not they, as parents. Laughable thing is, if you want to go to Blockbuster and rent, say, Saw, or Ichii the Killer, nobody will ask you Id or something like that. The hypocrisy behind this drives me mad...
    And you should look at TV programs here... there we give our worst... I guess we're trying to raise a generation of demented children or something by watching our TV...
    Italy is the best place in the world, but our society and politic class is really in need of a change.

  • Scientist #39 5 years ago

    And to confuse everything the Nazis called themselves National Socialists.

    Franco was a fascist in oppositon to the perceived communist thread. It is arguable that whoever won the Spanish civil war would have instigated a one party state, hence a good example of the similarities between fascism and communism as highlighted by some posters. The outcome is essentially the same to the man on the street.
    But this has more to do with needing an autocratic system in place to maintain order and control over the population especially when such power is generally gained via revolution/civil war.


    lavalant: EG's inspired political troll.

    @3william56
    lol

  • AcidSnake #40 5 years ago

    Aaaaaaaand...I'm back...

    @realtime:
    Thanks...

    @neuroniky:
    Does that mean you're italian as well?
    I agree our political structure here has become like the fanboy wars on these threads...
    They never achieve anything because rather than listen to each other they immediately go into 'the other guys said it so I must stop them' mode...

    Back to communism failing (USSR I mean), that happened because of all the money spent in the arms race and the 'other side of the curtain' where everyone appeared to be happy and rich...
    As remarked before, just because some idiots got things wrong it doesn't mean the idea is...

  • kangarootoo #41 5 years ago

    @SomaticSense

    You need to chill out.

    "makes you sound like ignorant backwood yanks. " Where did that shit come from? I bet that angle works wonders down your local debating society. Can I also recommend the "shut up, thats why" mechanic for best results.

    And I've read Animal Farm thanks. Seems you could do with a dose of Lord of the Flies going by your attitude.

  • JayPee #42 5 years ago

    Sales for this game just went up.

  • YourMessageHere #43 5 years ago

    @ scientist

    Technically the National Socialists called themselves Nazis (i.e. changed name later), but yes, it doesn't help.

  • Kos-Mos #44 5 years ago

    Good thing the PS3 is RF soo i can play Import ROR