The ESRB has dropped the hammer on the logo for Deep Silver and Techland’s Dead Island. The image that features a hanging zombie/corpse is no longer allowed to be displayed on the front of the game box or for advertising and marketing purposes in North America.
This is not a complete censorship of the image however, as the original logo will still be allowed within the game itself. The ruling by the ESRB will have no effect on the logo in Europe.
"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," the ESRB told IGN in a statement. "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."
The new, ESRB-approved logo for the game has a typical shambling zombie in place of the hanging figure.
This isn’t the first time the ESRB has censored a game’s logo regarding marketing purposes. Back in 2009, the organization made Valve place more fingers on the zombie hand of Left 4 Dead 2‘s logo.
See the new Dead Island logo for yourself below.
[IGN]
