Nintendo of Europe has finally explained the odd restrictions on 18+ content (which includes reading information, looking at screenshots, and watching video) in place on the European Wii U eShop. It turns out that German law is affecting when everyone (adults and children) can look at mature content. Last week Eurogamer found that it could not look at information on the eShop during certain times (11pm to 3am). This included info on the 18+ rated games ZombieU and Assassin's Creed 3.

It looks like the follow-up to the Zombie-themed action-RPG Dead Island won't be coming to Germany. In a recent interview with PCGamesN, Dead Island: Riptide creative producer Sebastian Reichert said this was due to the country's strict guidelines on the sale of violent media.

Earlier this month, an unknown number of CoD players balked at the religious text inscribed on the frame of a picture hung in the bathroom of the Favela multiplayer map.  In response, developer Infinity Ward promised to edit the offending imagery and subsequently removed the entire map from play.

About two weeks later, the edited map was made available to PS3 gamers.  Xbox 360 and PC players should have access to it soon.

Having found victory in getting The Pirate Bay blocked in the United Kingdom, BPI (the trade and lobby group representing the music industry in the UK) is looking to get even more Torrent sites blocked in the region. According to the BBC, six UK ISPs including BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk, received letters from the BPI asking them to block three torrent sites: Kickass Torrents, H33t and Fenopy.

Fans of Bohemia Interactive's popular simulation-based military shooter series ArmA in Iran who were hoping to get their hands on the company's next game, ArmA 3, are officially out of luck. Though it's not surprising news that Iran would not approve a game coming out of any region in the world that they deem a threat to their political, social, cultural and religious standards, it is nonetheless a small setback for fans and for Bohemia.

Gay Gamer chronicles a legal fight that is brewing between the sub-Reddit r/gaymers and Gaymer.org. Gaymer.org sent a cease and desist to Reddit asking that the sub-Reddit be removed because it violates a copyright it holds for "gaymer."

Here's the trademark Gaymer.org owns - filed by site owner Chris Vizzini in 2007:

Last week the creators of a Skyrim mod inspired by The Lord of the Rings called Middle-Earth Roleplaying Project (MERP) found itself staring down the barrel of a cease and desist letter from Warner Bros.

In an attempt to save the mod, the team behind MERP set up a petition urging fans and followers to convince Warner Bros. to rescind the order and make an exception for what they think could be a most exceptional mod... From the petition:

GamesIndustry International has an interesting article featuring No Reply Games co-founder Miriam Bellard. Yesterday we reported that the company's erotic adventure simulation game, Seduce Me, had been booted from Steam Greenlight. Today the founders of No Reply Games explained what they had hoped and their disappointment in how Valve handled their game.

Amsterdam-based indie developer No Reply Games issued a statement yesterday saying that their first game to make its way on to Steam Greenlight has been kicked off the service. The game is called "Seduce Me," and is an erotic themed dating simulation. From the trailer we viewed of the game, it contains some nudity, adult language, sexual themes, and adult situations.

"Many people still view games as 'for children' in spite of the fact that the average gamer is 30 years old," said No Reply Games Miriam Bellard.

Are there any themes or topics that should never be explored in a video game?

On Friday a few short paragraphs of text were leaked from the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty negotiations. The TPP is being negotiated by nine Pacific Rim countries (in secret) with the goal of producing a free-trade agreement that tackles issues related to intellectual property rights. The next round of negotiations is set to take place sometime in September in Leesburg, Virginia.

While some hay is being made over the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union meeting in Dubai in December, most believe it is much ado about nothing. The way the Internet is regulated internationally will face a review in December, but the United States is already pointing out a number of changes that it will absolutely not allow under any circumstances. The regulations under review are from 1988.

In the rest of the world websites can go dark, post commentary, or engage in various forms of protests to let governments and corporations know how they feel about a particular issue.

It looks like Square Enix is editing the contents of its upcoming game in order for it to be released in Japan. The game, (called Sleeping Dogs Hong Kong Secret Police in Japan and Sleeping Dogs in other parts of the world) developed by United Front, will be edited to fit the market in some bizarre ways.

Besides getting a rating of CERO Z (adults only), the game will be edited with a system that punishes players for killing civilians. We have no idea what that punishment will be, but we imagine it will be much more than a "time out."

South Korea's new "Shutdown Law" was supposed to keep teens from gaming during a six hour block every night to focus on "more important things" like studying, but two groups have already filed lawsuits that question the legality of the new nanny state law concocted by lawmakers in the country. A group of game makers doing business in the region including NCsoft, Neowiz, and Nexon, have filed a lawsuit claiming that the Shutdown Law is unjust and unfair to them.

The first thing that crossed my mind when Nintendo showed the Miiverse at its E3 press conference was "how long after the Wii U launch will the first user type out an expletive?" Well apparently Nintendo's solution for dealing with potty mouths is a system that uses actual humans to screen bad or inappropriate language.

Nintendo's chief executive Satoru Iwata says that the company plans to implement and use three separate systems. The first system is a traditional filtering system that checks for unpleasant words and replaces them with asterisks.

Why did Frogster censor its MMO TERA when it seemed like no one was calling for them to do so? We don't know, but Andrew Eisen explores the whole affair in his latest video, and channels perhaps the creepiest person I have ever seen on a YouTube video. You'll know it when you see it.. 

We also discuss the issue in the latest episode of the podcast just for fun...

As always, you can check out all of Andrew's videos on his YouTube channel.

In a lengthy interview with Eurogamer, Frogster's Lucile Le Merle tries to explain why European publisher censored the scantily clad Elin race in TERA. In South Korea the game features this female race in skimpy outfits revealing their panties, but in Europe and the U.S.

Emboldened by The Court of The Hauge’s January ruling that two of the Netherlands’s largest ISPs must implement a DNS and IP block of The Pirate Bay, anti-piracy group BREIN went ahead and sued a few more Dutch ISPs to censor the site.

Well, chalk up another success for BREIN because the Court has ruled that UPC, KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile and Telfort must also block The Pirate Bay.  The blocking order covers 20 specific domains such as ThePirateBay.org, ThePirateBay.se, ThePirateBay.com, DePiraatBaii.be and TheMusicBay.net.

You may recall last month that European players of the MMO TERA were up in arms over the fact that the game in their region had been stripped of blood. They started a petition and took to forums to complain about it with much gusto.

Microsoft has decided that it’s time to eliminate some of the "racier" apps that are available on Windows Phone 7's app store. The announcement was made by Todd Brix, Microsoft's senior director for Windows Marketplace, on the company's blog.

A game called Occupied Forever can't get certified from Microsoft for release in China because the flushing sounds it contains apparently offend Asians. At least that's what Austrian indie developer Christian Zangl claims Microsoft told him when they rejected his game from Windows Phone Marketplace in the region.

Libertarian-leaning publication Reason Magazine offers a new episode of Reason TV called, "Too Much Copyright?" in a brand new video featuring Ben Huh, CEO and founder of Cheezburger; law professor Tom Bell; and MPAA's head content protection counsel, Ben Sheffner. Host Zach Weissmueller asks all three about the current state of copyrights laws, their effectiveness, and the push for new laws like SOPA and PIPA. Check out the video to your left.

According to several Tweets last night by indie developer Edmund McMillen, Nintendo has decided not to allow The Binding of Isaac on the 3DS.  Nintendo itself has released no statement but McMillen, one of the game’s designers, speculates that it’s the religious context of the game that’s giving the publisher pause.

Android app developer RC3 has decided that it will fight lawyers representing teen heart throb Justin Bieber who sent the company a cease and desist over its game "Joustin' Beaver." The developer has preemptively filed a lawsuit against Bieber claiming that its game is a parody and therefore protected under the First Amendment. 

Nine recording labels (EMI, Polydor, Sony, Virgin, Warner, and more) asked the UK High Court to block The Pirate Bay, claiming that it infringes on their copyrights and that several ISPs (BSkyB, BT, TalkTalk, Telefonica and Virgin Media) need to implement a block of the site under Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

An Oklahoma lawmaker has introduced a bill in the state legislature that would impose a tax on "violent video games" to help fight childhood obesity and bullying. Oklahoma State Representative William Fourkiller (D-Stilwell) introduced bill HB 2696, which would add a 1 percent tax on games rated Teen, Mature, and Adults Only by the ESRB. These funds would be used for fighting childhood obesity and bullying. 

Forbes has an excellent editorial up about the ESA's support of the Stop Online Piracy Act that does a great job of explaining - in simple English - how it could affect every day web sites who might not necessarily be engaged in anything but providing content.

Starting January 6th, Belarus, a former Soviet state that became independent in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, will restrict what its citizens can do on the Internet, thanks to new legislation. The new law requires that anyone doing business in the country must utilize fully local Internet domains when carrying out their activities online. Basically, this law criminalizes the use of web sites such as Amazon or Google if they don't have a web site within the country.

It didn't take long for one misinformed and overzealous lawmaker to help get a poor developer's app removed from Apple's store. The app in question, " Driver License," allowed users to create a mock driver's license to entertain and amuse friends. But Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) didn't see the fun in it, and was concerned that it could be used to create a license. Apparently the Senator believed that this program was so sophisticated that a terrorist could download the app and make a fake ID on the fly for some nefarious purpose.