Well, they don't shoot anybody, that's quite liberal for America...

The first amendment isn't unlimited, there's a definite limit to it, although in practice it's hard to say where exactly the line is. The relevant test is the Miller test. It's basically a three prong test to see if it is of any value. It considers the following: If all three of those conditions are satisfied it's considered obscene and not protected by the first amendment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_Obscenity_Test
Right, and the materials tend to not be sold before they violate the Miller test.

I still don't see how any of that makes what I posted untrue in any way. States still cannot pass a law restricting the content of video games as long as the First Amendment protects them. Whether or not the content of a particular game is considered obscene really has nothing to do with that. If a game's content was declared obscene, it would only be exempt from First Amendment protections; the already existing anti-obscenity laws cover that circumstance readily so there is no reason or need for a law that specifically targets video game content, hence why they keep getting shot down.

It depends upon how precisely you want to define some of those terms, so I suspect that there's a disagreement about that. States do from time to time pass bills which do infringe on the 1st amendment and they do get set aside by SCOTUS.

At any rate, I don't think that there's anything in particular to argue seeing as we seem to largely be agreeing, just not as to the extent or the precise lines involved.

There is nothing unconstitutional about this.

If a developer decides to censor their games then its their choice. If there is a laaw saying you have to be a certain age to buy them then thats not unconstitutional either. No one is being forced to do anything.

Basically games are always censored because its about making money. Most retail stores, paticullary all major chains will not carry AO games. Most websites wont carry AO games. So a developer censoring their game to avoid a AO rating means they will have a chance to sell more copies because a M rating will still get into all major retailers.

AO is like a XXX or unrated is to a movie, its a kiss of death because all major theaters will not show unrated or xxx movies. Take robocop for instance, it was rated x for violence and had to be censored down to get a R rating.

Besides if developers really cared about uncensored games they would sell uncensored versions off their company website online and sell the censored versions at stores and so on. But no devs do that so they obviously dont care that much.

Not to mention out society discourages it already so much. What do you really think would happen in american society if a kid got ahold of a uncensored game somehow and his parents saw a giant dick going in and out of a pussy in a game, or a game where a demon rapes some child. The politicians would go fucking ballistic. They throw fits enough as it is over getting a hooker in gta4 and hell you dont even see so much as a thigh or a nipple when you do that.

True, but the uncensored versions already exist, they just can't be sold in certain countries depending upon the specifics.

Has GOG's Fallout 2 been censored afterwards, because I downloaded it 2008/09/21 and it does have children at least on Klamath. I installed it on my notebook today and rushed there just to check if I had unknowingly patched them back in along with the restoration project or some other fixes. GOG's Fallout 1 I know to be censored, wonder that came to be when the sequel isn't?

We really need to list all these censored releases, so they can be hacked to work like they should have from the first place. And some official explanation would be in order, so we can stop guessing why this happens and start sending angry letters to whoever is to blame for it.

Actually now I am remembering that Fallout 2 was my first purchase from here and had it been censored my virtual shelf would not have almost a 150 cases in it today... ...and most of them I have a physical copies too, so I would like to know how many of those I still need install from CDs since the GOG-release is not good enough?

My UK English copy was uncensored. =D It... came with a graphics card IIRC. >.>

Censorship doesn't bother me.
It doesn't affect gameplay at all.

You can't make a blanket statement like that. The removal of kids from Fallout 1&2 made quests uncompletable and broke a few other things (I believe you still got pickpocketed by invisible kids).

Censorship may not bother you but you can't say it never affects gameplay.

Censorship ruins the experiences in games for many people. For example, making a game more unrealistic(dissappearing bodies, no blood) unless the game has an unrealistic amount of blood and gore. And like eyeball226 said, it can break things in a game. Censorship really does affect gameplay. A censored game is like a beta version of a game when the normal version is available, just not available for you. And that sucks, in my opinion. So have fun purchasing and playing your beta versions...

You've never played (or heard about) the Japanese version of Fallout 3 then. Censorship removed an entire plot line from the game making impossible for owners of that version to use the apartment in the Tenpenny Tower as their home.

So yes, censorship can and does affect gameplay.