Adult-Rated Dead Rising Buried in Japan

The Japanese release of zombie adventure Dead Rising was hidden away in Tokyo retail stores due to its eighteen-and-over rating, reports Game-Science:

Bic Camera: No cases on display. No advertising in store. Willing buyers must take a small, non-descript card to the cashier to purchase. Game not present in Z-rated section.
Sakuraya: Poster on display on game floor, but 75% concealed by a Pokemon display. Game boxes on display in small Z-rated section at the back of the floor.
Tsutaya: No cases or advertising at all. It didn’t appear the game was on sale, in fact. The game was not even present in the Z-rated section.

Previously, a similar adults-only rating was applied to several Japanese games, but the change in ratings system was accompanied by a new law making it illegal to sell the "Z" games to minors, says Game-Science.

This is exactly what free-speech advocates mean when we say that making sales of violent video games to kids illegal will have a "chilling effect" on creative output. Capcom heavily censored the Japanese release of the game, but it seems to have been all for naught, as it still received a Z-rating – and has subsequently been all but hidden away in Japanese stores.

What happens now? It's highly likely that no other games publisher will want to repeat this scenario – they want their games actually displayed on shelves, after all. So they'll probably engage in heavy self-censorship to make sure their games don't get slapped with the Z-rating kiss of death.

And it's not even as if Dead Rising is that grotesque of a game. Its brand of campy, cartoonish, over-the-top dismemberings and beheadings were more along the lines of a comedy slasher flick, which remain entirely legal to be viewed by (and in many cases the near-exclusive province of) minors.

Game-Science calls it "unnerving." That's a heavy understatement.