Dead Island Video Game Logo Gets Hung Up By Censorship

Sorry, couldn’t resist the little pun in the title of this one, but..

Dead Island, the video game that sees a zombie outbreak take place on a Caribbean Island and vacation resort, had its logo censored by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) in the U.S, according to IGN.

The initial logo showed a corpse hung from a tree to form the letter “I” in “Island.”

The new logo now depicts a zombie straggler as the letter “I.”

Few things to note:

The logo will remain unchanged in European markets.

The logo will be alterted in the U.S. on the box art and for advertisements – but not within the game.

ESRB nazis (whoops!) released the following:

The video game industry has set guidelines about the types of content that are appropriate in advertising and marketing materials, which includes game box art. According to those guidelines the depiction in the logo was not compliant.

We never censor or dictate in any way what type of content can be included within a game. However, a game’s marketing materials are seen by an audience that is much broader than that which actually purchases the game itself, so we enforce industry-adopted guidelines as to what is suitable for inclusion in these materials.

So what is all the fuss about?

Here are the logos, followed by the trailer (mature viewing) – which has been viewed over 13,000 times on the Cosmic Book News YouTube Channel!