Tropico 5 Banned in Millitary Dictatorship

It's not uncommon for gamers to find themselves banned in certain countries, namely ones with more conservative governments or overbearing ones.  Australia, for example, is pretty damn strict regarding what games it’ll let into its boarders, and famously censors more popular games to make them “acceptable” to the general audience.  China had a long history of banning consoles in general, but now that the ban has been lifted games coming into the country will face stiff regulations and censorship.

One such country where censorship is fairly common, both in video games and otherwise, is Thailand.   Since the military coup back in May, news and television has been censored by the new dictatorship to seed out “civil threats”.  And now, Tropico 5—an empire building sim where you can rule as a dictatorship and control the media and your civilians with an iron fist—has been banned in the country.

I guess they wouldn’t want people getting any ideas!

It’s just one of several recent bans, including one on Macbeth (censoring the Bard?  Really?) but it’s interesting for us because A, it’s a game, and B, the developer of the game, Kalypso Media, has no intention of challenging the ban.   In a statement, a Thailand representative said:

"Actually it's a good game with positive reviews. We've had licenses to distribute Tropico 3 and 4 before, but in the fifth installment, the story line has developed further and there might be some part of it that's not appropriate in the current situation"

She also claimed the government feared “some parts of the content might affect peace and order in the country”.

Well, so it goes.  Tropico 3 and 4 are still pretty great games, so it’s not as if the people of Thailand will be left wanting, but it still smells of delicious irony.  Consider this your daily serving.